Agriculture in India | Part 2 | Farmers in India

 · Farming in India is too diverse to be controlled through central policies and letting the subject be controlled by states is quite sensible. Very rightly agriculture was designated as a state subject by the framers of the Constitution.

· NHFS Survey has shown that eighteen of the 22 states and UTs recorded a rise in the percentage of children under five years of age who are stunted, wasted and underweight compared with 2015-16, reversing decades of gains. There is also a rise in obesity. These figures are in consonance with the fall in GDP since demonetization and indicate the inability of the poor to get the required protein and minerals in their diet.

 

· Only 6% of farmers benefit from MSP but in Haryana and Punjab, where the vast majority of the procurement of wheat and rice happens, farmers are much more dependent. For example, 95-98% of Punjab’s wheat and paddy are procured at MSP prices.

 

· Deflation in farmers’ earning has been maximum since 2014. Promise of the government to double the farmers’ income by 2022, like many other promises, is apparently false. Production increase has caused no increase in profits.

· Bihar. In 2006, Bihar was the first state in the country to abolish the Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) Act which facilitated private companies to directly purchase from farmers. Some farmers there claim they have to sell their produce to private companies at throwaway prices as middlemen and local traders make huge profits by buying the produce below the MSP.

· MP. In MP farmers’ agitations, taking place at frequent intervals in the state, have failed to attract national attention, barring the 2017 Mandsaur incident in which five protesting farmers died. The Krishi Upaj Mandi Act, 1972 was recently amended, and the Model Mandi Act passed in May 2020 allowed traders to make purchases outside the “mandis” without any levy. In the first six months of the amendments, there has been a significant decline in their business. Moreover, a reduction in “mandi” cess on the traders from 1.7 per cent to 0.5 per cent in October this year has weakened the revenue-generating capacity of the “mandis”. Wheat was procured by the state government during April-July 2020 at the MSP of Rs 1925 per quintal. Fieldwork done in Hoshangabad showed that most of the produce was sold to the state government at MSP. The rates of wheat in the open market in Hoshangabad during the time of the harvest hovered around Rs 1,450 per quintal. Similarly, maize and “moong” crops, for which there was no procurement by the state, were sold in Hoshangabad at Rs 1,000 and Rs 6,000-6,500 per quintal respectively, whereas the MSP announced for these crops was Rs 1,850 and Rs 7,196 per quintal. Incidents of farmers destroying standing crops of vegetables like cauliflower and tomatoes in the face of high cost of cultivation and extremely low prices have become common in the state and elsewhere.

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