NEW DELHI: The farmers stir demanding loan wavers and procurement at Minimum Support Price (MSP) threatens to become a nationwide conflagration. Farmers affiliated to two bodies, Rashtriya Kisan mazdoor Sangh (RKMS) and Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU), and a few smaller ones are out on the roads since June 1.
Their next step is a Jail Bharo Andolan, which will put severe stress on law and order. Seven people have been killed in police firing so far, amidst unconfirmed reports of polticial provocation. Kisan Mahasangh, which is discussing the roadmap for a countrywide stir is the umbrella outfit of 60-odd farmers bodies across the country. Punjab averaging 700 farmers’ suicides annually could be the next hotspot of anger as its cotton farmers have been hit hard.
Excess cotton production and unseasonal rains affected the crop. Bundelkhand re
gion, spread across Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, has been drought hit for years, causing a drinking water crisis, livestock deaths and widespread hunger.
According to an official of the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare, aid of Rs 7,600-crore for Bundelkhand has not helped much, as the region remains parched as ever. Below average monsoon for three years, unseasonal rains and hailstorms broke the back of farmers in most parts of UP, leading to a spate of suicides. “Lack of procurement centres and a price crash despite bumper crops forced the farmers to demand the BJP keep its loan waiver promise,” added the official.
Officials are anticipating the agitation to spread to other parts of MP, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Karnataka. The immediate cause which has forced farmers to hit the streets is “the price crash in the times of plenty”. From 2014-16, prices of pulses and onion soared while “farmers thought that the prices would remain the same in coming years”, according to the official. The cyclical phenomenon of low production—high prices followed by high production costs has been the bane of Indian agriculture, which no government has been able to break yet, rued the official.
“Varieties of pulses which commanded prices of Rs 200 and more for a kilo are not fetching even Rs 50 now. The Minimum Support Price (MSP) announced by the government is not fully helping the farmers because a proper procurement mechanism and storage capacity in the states are absent,” said a senior officer of the Ministry of Food and Consumer Affairs.
He said farmers had heeded the government’s call for production of more pulses with 22 million tons this year against the average of 17 million. The case is the same with onions. But this only created a glut in the market. Besides Bundelkhand, where vast swathes of Telangana and Tamil Nadu are reeling under drought, the clamour for farm loan waivers is getting louder. Farmers have been agitating in the Saurashtra region of Gujarat—which goes to the polls next year—against the crash of cotton prices and seeking government help.