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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Why bumper harvests spell doom -Ashok Gulati & Prerna Terway

Why bumper harvests spell doom -Ashok Gulati & Prerna Terway

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published Published on Jun 19, 2017   modified Modified on Jun 19, 2017
-The Indian Express

With a glut in agricultural production, prices have fallen below MSPs. The government needs to get the agri-market right to address the farm crisis

The farmers’ protests in Madhya Pradesh (MP) and Maharashtra indicate that all is not well on the economic front, especially agriculture. If such unrest could happen in MP, which claims to have registered the fastest agri-GDP growth at 9.7 per cent per year during 2005-06 to 2014-15, then no state is likely to be immune from it.

MP has been a showcase for the performance of BJP-ruled states in agriculture. But it now appears that agriculture could be Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Achilles heel. The government’s poor performance in the sector at the all-India level — testified to by a growth rate of less than 2 per cent per annum during 2014/15 to 2016/17 — has to be addressed quickly, and in a sustained manner. Otherwise, the neglect of agriculture may cost the PM heavily in 2019.

What has really gone wrong with agriculture during the Modi era? And how can it be fixed? We focus here on prices and farm loans, although agriculture suffers from a number of problems.

The current protest in MP seems to have been triggered by the crash in onion prices, but it also drew strength from the news of loan waivers in Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Maharashtra. The seeds of competitive loan waivers were sown by the PM himself — at a rally during the election to the UP assembly, he announced that farmer loans will be waived in the very first meeting of the new UP cabinet, if the BJP were to be voted to power in the state. The new UP Chief Minister, Yogi Adityanath, followed the PM’s advice diligently.

Farmers in other states have been watching, and the loan waiver could lead to a demand for similar waivers in other states — Haryana, Punjab, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. We won’t be surprised if loan waivers cost state treasuries Rs 2,00,000 crore in the months to come, taking state-level deficits closer to 4 per cent of their GDP.

What is it that the farmers are demanding? Simply remunerative prices for their farm produce. The BJP had promised in its 2014 election manifesto that if voted to office, the party will ensure 50 per cent margin to farmers over their costs. Where does the Modi government stand on that promise after three years in office, compared to the last three years of the Manmohan Singh government?

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The Indian Express, 19 June, 2017, http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/madhya-pradesh-maharashtra-farmers-protest-loan-waiver-from-plate-to-plough-why-bumper-harvests-spell-doom-agricultu


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