M’rashtra farmers show way to Punjab

Jaskaran Singh Gill
Assistant Professor (Economics), Ramgarhia College, Phagwara

Roads of Mumbai were flooded with thousands of farmers and agriculture labourers seeking a solution to the agrarian distress across the country. After New Delhi and Rajasthan, this was the third agitation against the passive approach of the Central government to tackle agrarian distress. This beginning of the struggle is a ray of hope for the rural masses for their existence and prestige, no matter which political force was driving this agitation. At last, the government of Maharashtra had to agree to demands of the farmers. 

Agriculture is becoming distressful for the rural population in India. And, better output prices may not come about as international prices of agricultural commodities have fallen by nearly 50 per cent in the last few years. Even if better output prices are granted, it will solve the problem only partially. It will help owner cultivators but not those who lease land or don't have enough land to produce marketable surplus. As output price goes up, the land rent goes up proportionately, leaving very little advantage to the tenant cultivators. Farmers' unions must simultaneously raise the demand for land reform. Income stabilisation is the ultimate solution. Solution lies in granting a minimum income to farmers and not merely remunerative support prices.

The rural economy of Punjab has been in a deep-rooted agrarian crisis for the last three decades. 

The causes of the problem were earlier economic in nature, but now a political solution is required to tackle it. The offshoots of this crisis may bring about social strife in the state. Moreover, no political party has a broad consensus for any short-term solution or long-term planning to tackle this crisis due to vote bank politics. 

Punjab has been hit harder than the other states because of its comparatively greater dependence on agriculture and less development of the non-farm sector. As shown in the recent agitation by the farmers from Maharashtra, farmers of Punjab must not live at the mercy of the state by accepting freebies (free-of-cost electricity and loan waivers). 

They should be made capable enough to bring back the lost glory of agriculture. Development of the non-farm sector and agro-based industries with accessible markets will go a long way in the revival of agriculture in the state. But these are formal solutions and need a strong political will. No doubt it is not easy for the Punjab Government to diversify agriculture without the help of the Central government that once imposed the wheat-rice monoculture here. 

Many activities of the non-farm sector where workers and entrepreneurs engage, such as shellers, flour mills, marketing and transportations, are directly linked to the existing cropping pattern of agriculture. The policies of the state, prevailing conditions of the rural set-up and preferences of the farmers in dealing with their economic distress are some reasons for this practice of wheat-rice cropping pattern in Punjab. 

The market-oriented economy is provoking the farmers to raise expenditure on inputs and off-farm consumption, and this cannot be met without sowing wheat and rice with an assured MSP. The continued depletion of groundwater due to this monoculture is not a problem of the farmers alone in Punjab. The government, experts and society, as a whole, need to realise that they are also stakeholders in this issue.

Farmers and agriculture labourers must get organised to secure minimum income to themselves and not merely remunerative support prices. They should also be backed by organic intellectuals who have a deep political and economic understanding of agrarian issues. Policies related to reforming land lease market, weaning away small unviable farmers from agriculture and rural non-farm sector which are directly as well as indirectly linked to farm activities need to be revisited. An improvement in rural education is also the need of the hour so that future generations of farmers are capable of taking up jobs outside agriculture. All these solutions - better remunerative prices or land reforms or income stabilisation - will not come about without strong pressure from farmers, agriculture labourers and all those who feel directly or indirectly linked with the farmers. It would require united struggles by farmers' and agricultural workers' unions similar to the joint agitation at Sikar (Rajasthan) last year. All the stakeholders, including the common citizenry, will have to be united in saving the agriculture of the state. 

A glimpse of a beginning of this struggle has been sighted in Maharashtra. Punjab is eagerly waiting for it.