A cultivated deceit

Apparently realising that it is not possible to double farmers’ income in five years, the Centre has passed the responsibility on to the states. Instead of putting Central schemes under scrutiny to find out why these are not showing the desired results, Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh is handing these over to the states with the free advice that farmers should be assured remunerative prices for their produce. Now the BJP leadership has already disowned its pre-poll promise on the Swaminathan Commission's suggestion of giving farmers a 50 per cent profit over input costs. Its crop insurance scheme too is falling flat. Insurance companies have claimed much more from the government than what they have paid to farmers. Like the fertiliser subsidy, the scheme is apparently benefiting companies more than farmers.

Leave aside any improvement in farmers’ living standards, their plight has rather deteriorated and this is despite a good monsoon. Unabated farmer suicides are putting the country to shame. The solution found in loan waivers in Uttar Pradesh and Punjab was directed more at grabbing farmer votes than at alleviating their suffering or tackling the key agrarian problem of stagnant productivity. Since agriculture research is no longer a Central or state priority, farmers are trying their own solutions: it is reservations in Haryana and Gujarat, more river water for irrigation in Tamil Nadu, a loan waiver in Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra and Punjab apart from the common demand for implementation of the 50 per cent profit recommendation. For short-term electoral gains politicians offer, and sometimes implement, quick-fix solutions. 

In the last three years the increase in the minimum support prices for farm produce has not matched the rise in input costs, particularly of diesel. Farmers have not been compensated for the loss of income they suffered on account of demonetisation, which had caused a collapse of demand and farm product prices. Though agriculture is a state subject, states are perpetually short of funds and have no clue how to put cheer in farmers’ life. By passing on to the states the difficult job of doubling farmer incomes the BJP is cleverly trying to avoid possible embarrassment in 2019. This is cultivated deceit.