Govt. Policies Provide No Relief as Farmers Income Stagnant For Three Years

Earlier this year, on April 30, the Rashtriya Kisan Mahasangh, an umbrella body of 110 farmers’ organizations, announced a nation-wide supply cut off of farm products to the cities for 10 days from June 1. With empty assurances and broken promises, the Modi regime has been no different from its previous administrations in failing to alleviate the deplorable condition of farmers. The protest will show the farmer’s resentment against the Central government. 

The Economics of Farm Production

The incomes of farmers in the country have been stagnant since last three years. The Economic Survey of India, 2018 highlights the same and even suggests that a farmer’s income losses from the climate change “could be between 15 percent and 18 percent on average, rising to anywhere between 20 percent and 25 percent in unirrigated areas”.

Open markets are crashing and even MSPs are unable to provide any relief. With what should have been the floor price, markets are unable to provide MSPs that were decided by the government.

“The terms of trade in agriculture, in other words the difference between the prices received by farmers and prices paid by them, have turned unfavourable in the past three-four years while growth rates have also dropped,” Business Standard quoted Yogendra Alagh, chairman of the Institute of Rural Management as saying.

For example the total cost of production of tur dal in Karnataka was Rs 6,403 per quintal, according to Karnataka Agricultural Prices Commission, but the price the farmers received was roughly Rs 2,000 per quintal.

Unable to recover even the cost of production in an another instance, the distressed farmers chose to dump the tomato produce in fields and on roads in several districts because of the low price of Re 1 per kg, The Times of India reported.

Come June 1, farmers will stage a demonstration to turn government’s attention to the dejected picture of depressed incomes in farm sector. The conditions are manufactured in such a way that a farmer either commits suicide or migrates to urban developments in order to provide the basic sustenance to their families.

Failed Attempts of Central Government

While the Budget 2018 made headlines in the mainstream media for being a “pro-farmer budget”, the promises made by the government were nothing more than a hoaxand were far from alleviating the depressed agricultural economy.

Arun Jaitley, while presenting the budget, announced an ‘MSP that is 50% higher than the farmers cost of production’, a promise that the government had made during 2014 Lok Sabha elections.

However, a closer inspection narrates a different story -- of how the government was successfully able to mislead the public in its difference over computing the cost of production from the method that was prescribed by the Swaminathan Commission Report. The government might have gained electoral points in pretending to be “pro-farmer” but the welfare of farmers is still far from reality.

Moreover, it must be noted that the increased MSP is not enough considering that the Commission for Agriculture Cost and Price (CACP) sets MSP for only around 25 crops, leaving the prices for other crops’ open to fluctuation due to market volatilities.

In addition to that, the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana proved to be another failed scheme of the administration in mitigating the crisis. The insurance claims under the scheme have been either delayed or remained unpaid to the farmers. The list of administration's fiasco is unending and the target of doubling the real income of farmers by 2022 seems to be another politicaljumlaof Prime Minister Modi.

The Blind Urban Elites

Responding to this, while addressing an audience in Punjab, author and veteran journalist P Sainath centered the need to declare the agriculture a public service with a guarantee of minimum wages.

While the urban elites are blinded by the flashy headlines of the media covering IPL, Karnataka Elections and Royal Wedding, the farmers of this nation are raging with discontent towards the state. They now refuse to welcome the empty assurances and recurrent promises made by the politicians. They are protesting against the politicians who play vote bank politics under the banner of providing relief. But does any one care?

The glaring memory of death of six farmers during a protest in Madhya Pradesh soon became weaker. The breath-taking images of the long march, of 50,000 thousand Maharashtra farmers marching to Mumbai, disappeared from the newspapers within a few days. Will the June 1 protest also turn into a mere episode involving slogans and demands with no tangible relief to the farmers?