Farmers’ organisations seek fair deal in New Year

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New Delhi, Jan 1: With the beginning of the New Year, farmers’ organisations have come together to exert pressure on the government to pay heed to their views on solving farmers’ distress.

They are aggrieved over finance minister P Chidambaram for not inviting them for pre-Budget consultations.

“On December 29, 2006, the finance minister discussed farm issues only with select agriculture economists and plantation industry and ignored the farmers’ organisations. He termed it as a discussion with agriculturists,” alleged Krishan Bir Chaudhary, executive chairman of Bharat Krishak Samaj (BKS) and said “we appeal to the prime minister to hear our views, if the government is sincerely interested in resolving the issue of farmers’ suicides and distress.”

BKS is the farmers’ outfit of the ruling Congress party and others peasant organisations are surprised about its exclusion from the pre-Budget consultations.

Atul Kumar Anjaan of the CPI’s farmers’ outfit–All India Kisan Sabha said, “The government needs to fix support prices for all crops, factoring in rising cost of cultivation and rising market prices of essential commodities.”

When contacted the angry farmer leader of CPM, NK Shukla said: “How can the government formulate farm budgetary policies without hearing farmers and depending upon what the pseudo agriculturists say. The pseudo agriculturists always propagate the concepts eked out by the World Bank.”

The farmer leaders are ready with a solution. They want to suggest that a simple interest of not exceeding 4% should be charged on all kinds of agriculture loans. Farmers’ loans should be waived on account of two successive crop failures and the interest on loans should be waived on account of a single crop failure. All types of risks should be covered under crop insurance and scheme should cover all crops. Assessment for damage should be done on individual basis.The premium charged for insurance should not exceed 1%. Excise duty should be waived on all farm inputs and also on materials used in farm inputs.

“Consortium of Indian Farmers Associations (CIFA) had earlier met in early December, 2006 and discussed several problems confronting country’s agriculture,” said P Chengal Reddy.

The farmers’ leaders expressed grave concerns over the government’s reluctance in making adequate investment in the agriculture sector. They have suggested that completion of irrigation projects should be given the top priority. But irrigation projects should address ecological concerns and make adequate compensation for the project-displaced people.