National Farmers' Day Is A Reminder Of How Ungrateful We Are To Those Feeding 1.3 Bn Indians
Every year, India marks December 23, the birth anniversary of the fifth Prime Minister of India, Choudhary Charan Singh as Kisan Diwas, or Farmers' Day.
Singh, who came from an agricultural background had a relatively short stay at office as the Prime Minister of India, but during his tenure, he introduced several farmer-friendly reforms.
Farmers' agitation shows no signs of abating
Incidentally, this year the national farmers day is being marked at a time when hundreds of thousands of farmers are on the roads or are marching to Delhi to protest against three recent agri laws, which they fear will have a devastating impact on their lives and livelihoods.
They fear that by opening up the procurement to big corporates, the minimum support price (MSP) which for long has been the only assurance they had for their products will be compromised and will lead to the collapse of the system.
Though agriculture remains the biggest employment generator in India and accounts for around 14 percent of the country¡¯s economy, nearly 42 per cent of the who are involved in the sector has been through several struggles over the years.
They are often referred to as 'annadata' or those who feed as in highly charged political speeches, but they often go hungry or make little to nothing to sustain them.
Due to the years of crop failures and poor prices, they get for what they cultivate, small farmers often live in a debt trap.
The rise in the number of farmer suicides every year is a reminder of how bad the situation has become for the ones who are feeding us.
Grim numbers
According to the latest National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data, 10,281 farmers committed suicide in 2019, which accounts for 7.4 per cent of the total suicides in the country.
For many farmers, the MSP for which the government or private agencies have been mandated to buy farm produce is the only assurance that they ever have.
In the case of those items that are not covered under MSP, the farmers are at the mercy of the middlemen and market factors.
This can have a devastating impact on their incomes, especially in the peak harvest season. Every year during the peak harvest season vegetables like potato, tomatoes, and onions which on average sell at Rs 40 or above in the markets are sold by the farmers at Re 1/per kg or even less.?
Farmers say at these rates it is not even viable for them to harvest and transport them to the wholesale markets. They feel that instead of taking such pain, it is better not to spend time and money to harvest or just feed them to their cattle.
While the new agri bills empower farmers to sell their products anywhere in India, they say that it is not economically or practically possible for a small farmer to take his harvested crops beyond the neighborhood wholesaler to sell them.
