Wooing With Farm Waivers

Taking a cue from Uttar Pradesh, more state governments including Maharashtra and Punjab could waive offloans to farmers to woo rural voters in the run-up to the 2019 general election.

- Charanjit Ahuja

 India produces over 265 million tonnes of food grains per year that can suffice to feed all its people and make farmers a happy lot! Yet, we see many go hungry and farmers are driven to commit suicide. The recent protests by farmers at Jantar Mantar grabbed national attention due to their novel, and often shocking, forms of agitation. The farmers held protest cross-dressing as women, staged street plays carrying skulls, ran naked near Prime Minister’s off ice, held mouse in their mouth, conducted mock funerals, snake meat, and drank urine. The agitating farmers agreed to suspend their agitation till May 25 after getting assurance from Tamil Nadu Chief Minister E Palaniswami. During the course of their protest, the farmers met political leaders including Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, finance minister Arun Jaitley but the Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not meet them.

The fact is that agriculture in India has been facing many issues from fragmented land holding to depleting water-table levels, deteriorating soil quality, rising input costs to low productivity. Nearly 80 per cent of the 140 million farming families hold less than two acres of land and as land holdings are small more farmers are forced with the obsolete technology resulting in low farm incomes. Most of the farming in India is monsoon dependent and irrigation consumes more than 80 per cent of the total water use in the country. Most of the farmers are dependent on seeds sold but the spurious seeds hitting the market, farmers do not get adequate yields. Harried farmers are forced to use high amounts of fertilisers and pesticides. To add to it, the heavy dependence on traditional crops like rice and wheat points to the lack of a proper national plan on agriculture.

ERODING CREDIT DISCIPLINE