Agitated agrarians planning an agitation where they return to barter system till the government pays heed to their demands for assured market rates
Brace yourselves. Even as you have just lived through a tough six days without doctors when they struck work last month, here's another upcoming strike that could hit you where it hurts most: Your daily food supplies.
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Farmers in Ahmednagar, Nashik, Pune, Satara, Kolhapur, Aurangabad and other districts are planning one this kharif season because they feel that they haven't made any profit that would help them in sustaining their farm and supporting families any longer. To this effect, a preliminary meeting was held yesterday by 40 villages at Pun Tamba in Ahmednagar. The movement is now expected to reach out to at least 30 more districts by April-end and a conclave is also scheduled for May to launch a final assault.
Policy failure to blame
"Farming has never been sustainable. We rarely get assured price for our produce, whereas middlemen make huge profits as they take our produce to cities," said Dr Dhananjay Dhanwate, a member of the farmers' action committee.
Speaking to mid-day, he blamed the agrarian crisis on the government's wrong polices. "Government officials, people in agriculture universities and APMC representatives have not been guiding political bosses well. A faulty export and import policy impacts us very badly every year," he said.
Instead, the distressed farmers say that the best policy to enforce would be assured market rates. "For example, the prices of pulses (tur daal in particular), onion, wheat, milk, soyabean are never stable. Since we usually sell these at a rate lower than the production cost, why should we produce them? Our families suffer even as cash-rich cities buy them, bringing profit to our agents instead," said Dhanwate.
Back to barter
It appears that the primary execution of the agitation entails the farmers returning to the barter system. Simply put, they will stop farming at a large scale to save on investment and won't need to raise capital through loans. They will, however, produce enough to suffice their respective villagers' collective needs. Essentially, the idea is to hit the urban population with deep pockets while sustaining life in the smaller hamlets.
What about Mumbai?
In case of Mumbai, which gets its supply of essential commodities from neighbouring rural districts, a strike would shrink its commodities' supply and prices would spiral. Thus, farmers expect that the government would come under pressure to act fast and meet their demands. The BJP government has refused a conventional loan waiver, but it is instead working on modalities that would be different from previous loan waivers.
Satish Vijapurkar, who reports extensively on farming issues, was skeptical about the success of the agitation, but said, "The concept of striking farming itself is attention-worthy. But farmers as well as the government know that farming cannot be entirely shut down because farmers cannot survive," he said.
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