Farmer as the anti-inflation instrument
Food insecurity stems not from insufficient production but from irrational use and inequitable distribution of resources coupled with inaccessibility to food.
Food insecurity stems not from insufficient production but from irrational use and inequitable distribution of resources coupled with inaccessibility to food.
Farmers were awarded a pay cut in a drought year while the talk was about doubling incomes. Even as the country celebrates its control over inflation, the farmer remains in the abyss.
Doubling abysmally low farm incomes is not impossible but only if India takes a sensible policy route, ridding itself of legacy contradictions.
Budget speeches have consistently prioritised farmer prosperity with across-party consensus on the matter. How come the budget makes little difference to farm woes?
Is the government’s consultation with farmers about understanding the need for change or to secure a forced validation of its own position?
The conversation on the farm sector needs to free itself of the haunt of food shortage and radically shift to issues of nutrition and safety.
Subsidy as a percentage of the GDP has been decreasing in India. The fertiliser subsidy helps farmers grow crops at a lower cost and the consumers who pay a lower price for food.
On Kisan Diwas, the thinking farmer rues the absence of towering farmer leaders like Charan Singh as the farm sector sinks deeper into a crisis.
Paying the plutocrats and impoverishing the farmer is the name of the government’s game with a ₹1,00,000 crore largesse going the bureaucracy’s way.
“Show me any farmer in any of the major national parties, who holds a senior position…” None; which explains the farm sector mess in India.