BAISAKHI MAY BRING GOOD LUCK FOR OUR LOCKED DOWN ECONOMY.

The Rabi crop of wheat and maize is ready for harvest in my farm. Potatoes and onions are too ready in some fields. This is the time when we need the migrant labourers most to help us and we have to pay a heavy price because they are few in numbers as most leave for their villages to help their families in harvesting their own crops. This year however it is a very different story. Some in our village have lodged these labourers in the fields, giving them food, shelter and money, so that their crops can be harvested in time. Please add this cost to the cost of the crop and try to imagine how much should the MSP go up by in order to make this crop profitable?

The bargaining power of the farmer is reduced because they do not have long term storage space for their grains. The states have their own prices which are generally slightly above the MSP. All this makes farming frankly unprofitable or barely profitable. Consequently, they cannot build up any capital to reinvest and improve the productivity of their farms, or save for the draught. The farm insurance has surely helped, but only a bit.

A farmer in India has not smiled since ages. Letting the price of food grains to rise is politically uncomfortable and so irrespective of the crop conditions their prices are kept low so that the poor can afford them. A very noble gesture no doubt, but who is compensating the farmer? In the last 3 decades the salaries of government servants have multiplied 25 to 30 times but the cost of food grains have not seen even a 10 times leap. How long will the farmer silently bear this burden? And then you wonder why the agriculture sector is not galloping!

If there are no rains the crop withers in the heat and the farmer cannot smile. If there are too much rains there is a deluge and the crop gets destroyed and the farmer again cannot smile. If there are just adequate rains there is bumper crop but the prices in the market fall and again the farmer does not smile! This has been his story but nobody is listening.

But you know what; it is this poor chap, the Indian farmer, who is ready to become the spark plug of our locked down economy. In the present grim economic scenario agriculture is our key to quicken our economic revival. The harvest is on, despite all odds. The central and state procurement agencies can give a good price for this crop and the money can quickly reach the farming families. Farmers can then buy manufactured products and the demand thus created can restart the manufacturing sector.

Farming can be made profitable by advanced technology and farm mechanization. For the small farmers it just does not make sense to purchase any equipment of their own because there is not enough work for any size of machinery on any one farm. The solution is to have equipment that can be hired on an hourly basis by the farming community. This is being facilitated by IFFCO, the leading cooperative in India but we need cooperatives in every village.

Pulses are grown extensively by poor farmers in pockets of southern Rajasthan. The farmers sell their produce unprocessed and normally through a chain of middlemen. As the dal is unprocessed and the middlemen charge huge cuts, farmers receive a tiny fraction of the price paid by the consumer. Moreover, since the farmers are scattered and not unionized, the middlemen and traders are able to dictate the prices, causing further loss to the farmers. Why can’t farmer’s cooperative run their own mills? This will force traders to buy at a higher price, thereby benefiting the farmers. Since the mill will be located in the village, it will significantly cut transport costs. Finally, farmers who are part of the cooperative are able to control the process of dal making and selling and will receive a share of any future profits. If Kurian could do this for milk then why can’t the Amul model be tweaked for our agricultural produce?

By restarting the locked down economy the Indian farmer is once again ready to prove his utility in the economy of the nation. It is time the nation takes notice of his plight and stand by his side. He does not require handouts, loan waivers, subsidies, promises and sympathy; he needs freely competitive price structure, cooperative farming, infusion of corporate capital for organized retailing, processing and export. Inviting private Indian investments and FDI in building food cold chains, food processing, packaging, food storage and distribution needs the urgent attention of the government.

The government needs to fix the logistics chain despite the lockdown to prevent the undue spiking in the cost of fruits and vegetables by unscrupulous middlemen. These comprise a quarter of our agricultural income. The distance from the farmer’s fields to our dinner plate is too long, too circuitous and with too many middlemen in between. It is time to usher reforms in agriculture sector. It is time to reform the land leasing legislations to give farmers more options. Agriculture produce market committees should be defanged and healthy competitive pricing should be encouraged.