Farmers see little hope, agriculture varsity welcomes promotion of dairies, oilseeds

Tribune News Service

Deepender Deswal

Hisar, February 1

The interim budget tabled in Parliament by Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has got a mixed response from farmers and agriculture experts.

No mention of farmers’ demands

While experts appreciate announcements regarding dairy production and promotion of oilseeds, farmers expressed surprise over no mention of their long-pending demands of ensuring guarantee of minimum support price (MSP) and not reviving cut in subsidies.

While the experts appreciate announcements regarding dairy production and promotion of oilseeds, the farmers expressed surprise over no mention about their long-pending demands of ensuring guarantee of minimum support price (MSP) and not reviving cut in subsidies. Inderjit Singh, a leader of All India Kisan Sabha, said Haryana being predominantly an agriculture state has absolutely nothing in this budget that can in any way ameliorate the miseries of agrarian crisis.

“There is no emphasis on compensation and insurance claims for damaged crops in background of PMFBY proving benefit only to private companies,” he said, adding that FCI or Cotton Corporation or other procurement agencies have been deliberately starved of required allocations in successive budgets of the Modi government.

He also said various subsidies to the farm sector were not being revived which were cut down in recent years.

Another farmer Dayanand Punia said the budget has nothing on demands of farmers. “I hope that the government could make some announcement regarding ensuring a profitable formula for farmers and allocate some specific funds for this. Besides, there is no talk about fertilisers. The ever-increasing input cost is one of the major factors in making farming an unprofitable occupation,” he said.Sandeep Arya, a spokesperson of Hisar-based Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agricultural University (HAU), said announcements regarding increasing milk production and oilseed production, and promotion of the private-public investment in post harvesting activities would give a fillip to the agriculture sector.

“Boost to oilseed could lead to a cut down on import of edible oil that will curb inflation in the food sector,” he said.

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