Angry farmers in the city

Bumper harvests have been unable to keep the farmers off the streets for the past couple of years. While granaries overflowed, prices have crashed and unpaid agricultural loans have grown 20 per cent. This year too, the country expects a bumper crop, yet there have been a dozen farmers’ agitations. For the second time in as many months, representatives of over 200 farm organisations are camping in Delhi. They want a special parliamentary session to discuss their woes and the passage of two laws — making MSP a legal requirement and to ensure that the government purchases all harvested crops. They have in their sights a national debt relief commission to address indebtedness in distressed areas and to waive loans.

How is this dichotomy of restless farmers and bumper harvests to be explained? Besides the exasperation of unmet promises — hiking the MSP has benefited only a few, and half of the insured farmers are starved of claims under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Beema Yojana (PMFBY) -- the macro picture is alarming. Half of the households are indebted and farmers’ suicides average 15,000 per year. Over the years, the number of farmers fell and farm labourers increased. In other words, lakhs of farmers have been reduced to an agrarian underclass.

Governments pay the price of not meeting the farmers’ expectation through the ballot box. The elections to the three Hindi heartland states will be a crucial dip test in this regard. The problem has been diagnosed. Nearly 70 per cent of Indian agricultural households spend more than they earn. This pushes them towards debt, suicides and dispossession of their land. The current unrest is over the low remunerative prices and uncertain claim settlements under the crop insurance scheme. The crises in Indian agriculture has had a prolonged existence and outlasted regimes. But the report card during the Modi regime has been particularly lacklustre when farm prices have risen less than general prices. The government needs to concede the demand for a special parliamentary session on agriculture — a subject of urgent national discourse.