The Commission on Inclusive and Sustainable Agriculture Development of Andhra Pradesh under the chairmanship of R. Radhakrishna will come out with recommendations in two months to make farming remunerative.
A task force of the Commission, led by S. Gulab, Director of the Centre for Economic and Social Studies, Hyderabad, gave an indication to this effect after taking on file petitions from a large number of ryots and farmer organisations on Thursday.
Prof Gulab said: Unlike the traditional ryots, who were able to make both ends meet with returns once in six months or so, the present day farmers need regular flow of income every month. We will include in our recommendations multiple livelihood opportunities to ensure regular flow of income for the ryots every month.”
“Marketing has been the crux of the peasants' problems,” Prof. Gulab observed and promised to include their suggestions pro-farmer policy measures.
Long before their counterparts in the agrarian state of Punjab, ryots in Prakasam district went for alternative crops like subabul and eucalyptus. But they were in a quandary with no assured returns in the case of social forestry plantations too, he noted.
Pouring out their woes, farmer after farmer complained to the Commission members, including Prof. D. Narasimha Reddy, Prof D. Narasimha Reddy and K Venkat Reddy about the menace of spurious seed, ever-increasing cost of farm inputs, unremunerative price for their produce and lack of institutional credit especially for tenant farmers.
Taking the lead, TDP farmers’ wing Prakasam district president K. Venkaiah said while the farmers were forced to part with their produce at a lesser price at the time of harvest due to lack of holding capacity, the traders made a killing.
The Centre’s EXIM policy also hurt them the most, he said referring to the fluctuating prices for, among other crops, cotton and Bengal gram in the wake of imports of farm produce from abroad.
