At last the most suppressed class of our society, namely, the farming community, is getting its act together and protesting for its rights. We allow all manufactured products to be exported. In fact, we give unwarranted (DEPB) incentives, ostensibly for taxes that they have borne. In many cases, benefits like these are enhanced for no reason, and with retrospective effect from an arbitrary date in the past, causing higher government deficit and inflation — all in the name of export promotion.

DOUBLE STANDARDS

But when it comes to agricultural products, we apply a completely different yardstick, even in the case of non-food items like cotton. We ban exports at will and prevent the farmer from getting an occasional decent return.

There was no minimum support price for onions, yet the government banned its export. A surplus comes into existence during the harvest season, and in the absence of a minimum support price and an export window the poor onion farmer has been forced to lose money. Rice is another agricultural commodity that fetches a very low return, due to low support price and lack of freedom to export, despite the huge surplus that we produce.

It is time we looked at controlling food costs for the vulnerable sections of our society by strengthening the PDS and not by throttling the poor farmer, even as we unabashedly reward industry with unjustified DEPB, with or without retrospective effect.

We have created enough social problems by allowing land to be taken from poor landholders for mining and industry at a tiny fraction of its value. To top that, our Home Minister views the Naxalite problem as an even bigger one than the terrorist problem.

We should not create more social problems on account of our insensitivity towards farmers. We should seriously look at improving the return on investment in farming. MGNREGA has made farming even less profitable.

FARM MECHANISATION

We need to think of ‘out of the box' ways to increase the pace of farm mechanisation in the country to boost agricultural productivity. This can be done by creating a fund to provide low interest loans to any one who wants to buy farm mechanisation equipment such as tractors, planters, weeders, harvesters, etc. Such equipment is meant for work on farms, and therefore creating a slight surplus capacity in this service at a low cost will help farmers avail these services at a much lower cost than manual operations. Small farm holders will benefit most by utilising these services.

We need several such ideas to make farming profitable without incurring too much of a subsidy. The onion growers' strike should be seen as a wake-up call.

(Editor's note: This article was written before the Government lifted the ban on onion exports on September 20.)

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