“Just as a body must be cremated and cannot be brought back home, so must farm produce be sold,” says a brooding Jagdish Patidar, a farmer from Maheshwar on the banks of the Narmada. He has taken a day out to visit the Kisan Mukti Yatra passing through Barwani. “Once the farmer takes his crop to the market to sell, he must sell it and only then return home,” he says.
Mr. Patidar list the reasons — farmers do not have the space to store their produce; returning [with unsold produce] from the market would entail additional transportation costs; and most importantly, they need the money. It is here that the vicious cycle of the farmers’ crisis begins as they are forced to sell their produce cheaply. This leads to a dip in farm incomes which sometimes sparks off agitations, he says. Pointing out that the government opens procurement centres — to purchase farm produce at the minimum support price — more than a month after the harvest, Mr. Patidar says the farmer cannot hold on to his produce for such a long time. He thus sells it to merchants at well below the MSP. Further, the way the MSP operations are carried out do not protect farm incomes.
No guarantee
Even when the government finally starts purchase operations, the farmer has no guarantee that his produce will be sold as often it is rejected on grounds of quality. Once again, the farmer turns to the private merchants to sell at lower prices.
The ongoing Yatra of farmers’ organisations — attended by activists like Medha Patkar, Yogendra Yadav and Raju Shetty — has two key demands: the raising of the MSP to 1.5-times the cost of production and universal loan waiver.
“The MSP is meaningless without a procurement guarantee. The government need not purchase all the produce but if the price falls below the MSP, the government must step in as a buyer of the last resort,” says economist H.M. Desarda, former member of the Maharashtra State Planning Commission.
In nearby Naraula village, Rajaram, an ageing farmer, list more drawbacks to the government procurement schemes. “When we sell to merchants, they pay us in cash within three-four days. The government centres, however, pay a month or more later and the money comes straight in our accounts,” he says.
