Another Sunday
When one hears of farmer suicides and distress n farm sector, one feels disturbed.
We have been hearing about it almost every couple of years about crops getting destroyed by drought or unseasonal rains .We can nothing about nature but we
can do a lot more to fix the farming sector.
Firstly , the agricuture growth has fallen from 4 % in early 2000 to 2% in late 2000 -2012 and now down to 1%..The land in many cases is unable to support
family of five and more and some are forced to move to other areas in rural areas,In addition to support to farming, alternate occupation need to be found for
others in villages. MNREGA was fulfilling this purpose though the the work the workers engaged did was not praise worthy in many cases and there were leakages.
As far as farming is concerned , what is basically lacking is scale of holdings . there needs to be some consolidation into larger holdings. The inputs specially
urea prices are varying to high levels . Support such as MSP etc is available only a few items .like basic cereals like rice ,wheat but for others like
oilseeds,dals etc only the market decides what is to be sown. also transportation channel remain the same with middle men and mandis which make the
produce costly. Farmer does not get much , It is the the middlemen ,wholesale fellows who decide price and drive up prices. Some mechanism to underake
cash transfer directly to farmers as subsidy thru banks can really help.Whatever govt transfers like waiver of dues etc benefit only large farmers who have
borrowed from banks and not others. Unless small farmers are taken out of clutches of money lenders , micro finance sharks, given crop insurance and
protection against unforeseen events, their life cannot improve. there needs to be some expert inputs on what to sow for best returns.There needs to be
reforms in farm sector. It is far more important than chasing industrialists who anyway are looting our sarkari banks to get access to easy money which they
have no intention of returning, Farmers are not organised. Hence farming sector is suffering. My heart goes out to them
When one hears of farmer suicides and distress n farm sector, one feels disturbed.
We have been hearing about it almost every couple of years about crops getting destroyed by drought or unseasonal rains .We can nothing about nature but we
can do a lot more to fix the farming sector.
Firstly , the agricuture growth has fallen from 4 % in early 2000 to 2% in late 2000 -2012 and now down to 1%..The land in many cases is unable to support
family of five and more and some are forced to move to other areas in rural areas,In addition to support to farming, alternate occupation need to be found for
others in villages. MNREGA was fulfilling this purpose though the the work the workers engaged did was not praise worthy in many cases and there were leakages.
As far as farming is concerned , what is basically lacking is scale of holdings . there needs to be some consolidation into larger holdings. The inputs specially
urea prices are varying to high levels . Support such as MSP etc is available only a few items .like basic cereals like rice ,wheat but for others like
oilseeds,dals etc only the market decides what is to be sown. also transportation channel remain the same with middle men and mandis which make the
produce costly. Farmer does not get much , It is the the middlemen ,wholesale fellows who decide price and drive up prices. Some mechanism to underake
cash transfer directly to farmers as subsidy thru banks can really help.Whatever govt transfers like waiver of dues etc benefit only large farmers who have
borrowed from banks and not others. Unless small farmers are taken out of clutches of money lenders , micro finance sharks, given crop insurance and
protection against unforeseen events, their life cannot improve. there needs to be some expert inputs on what to sow for best returns.There needs to be
reforms in farm sector. It is far more important than chasing industrialists who anyway are looting our sarkari banks to get access to easy money which they
have no intention of returning, Farmers are not organised. Hence farming sector is suffering. My heart goes out to them
