Know Thy Farmer

If the huge labour force is displaced from agriculture because the sector is not able to provide quality employment and decent incomes there is no other sector in the country that can absorb it; 45.76 per cent of the workforce is in agriculture as per 2022-23 government data. The government has no choice but to protect agriculture

- P.S.M. Rao The writer is a development economist and commentator on economic and social affairs

To be fair to them, post-independent governments, both central and state, have undertaken innumerable studies, arranged agencies, and set up Commissions to develop farming and support farmers' incomes.

The real problem is that the recommendations of these commissions and studies are not taken seriously nor implemented fully in their true spirit, but newer studies are commissioned to continue to do good for the farm sector.

A glaring example is the Central government's non-implementation of the minimum support price recommendation of M.S. Swaminathan's National Commission on Farmers (2004) while continually advocating for raising farm incomes.

Alleviating the farm crisis and ensuring farmers' welfare has been the stated priority of the Andhra Pradesh and Telangana governments; both at the time when they were together as one state and thereafter ~ after 2014.

While the united Andhra Pradesh government during YS Rajasekhar Reddy's time constituted a Farmers' Welfare Commission under the chairmanship of Jayathi Ghosh, N. Chandrababu Naidu's government of the bifurcated Andhra Pradesh in 2014 appointed a Commission for the inclusive and sustainable development of Andhra Pradesh under the chairmanship of R. Radhakrishna which submitted its report in 2016.

This seems to have been never seriously examined by the government let alone the implementation of its recommendations. This author being a member of its subcommittee on Agriculture Investment, Credit flow and Farmers' Indebtedness is a witness to the painstaking work of that commission and its comprehensiveness.

Now, the Telangana government has appointed another body, Telangana Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Commission for a two-year term under the chairmanship of M. Kodanda Reddy, a senior Congress leader and a person with rich experience in farming and related issues.