As part of its continued activities for expressing solidarity with to the farmers protesting on the Delhi border, the Kalaburagi chapter of Samyukta Horata Karnataka, a conglomerate of different organisations and individuals, is going to organise a farmers’ conference in Kalaburagi on Friday.
Addressing a media conference in Kalaburagi on Wednesday, B.R. Patil, former MLA for Aland, said that the conference will be flagged off by Swaraj Abhiyan and Jai Kisan Andolan leader Yogendra Yadav at Nehru Gunj.
“Though we have been opposing the three controversial farm laws right from the beginning, this conference would specifically focus on the APMC Act. The implementation of the Act in State has already begun showing its adverse effects not just on the farmers, but the small traders as well. The business in all the APMCs in the State is hardly hit after the Act is enforced and the traders in the APMC have lost the business. In a few years, the entire APMCs in the country would close paving the way for big corporate houses to control the agriculture market in the country and exploit the farming community,” Mr. Patil said, appealing to the traders to join the farmers’ conference to demand the repeal of the controversial Act.
Countering Prime Minister Narendra Modi who often claimed that the Minimum Support Price (MSP) to farm produces would continue as it had been there for years, K. Neela, State vice-president of Akhil Bharatiya Janwadi Mahila Sanghatana, said that Mr. Modi was misleading the farmers by giving false promises. She also questioned Mr. Modi why he was not ready to legalise the MSP if he wanted to continue it.
“As a matter of fact, the price support regime would soon disappear to allow the big corporate houses to control the market of farm produces. The signs are clearly visible. We have been demanding the government to fix MSP as per recommendations of Swaminathan Commission and the government is fixing MSP which is far less than it. Even the MSP fixed by the government is not being implemented on the ground. The government itself is forcing the farmers to sell their crops at much lower prices than MSP by making deliberate delay in opening the procurement centres and procuring a little quantity of the crops,” she said appealing the farmers not to believe Mr. Modi’s words.
Sharanabasappa Mamshetty, a leader of Karnataka Prantha Raitha Sangha, announced that Samyukta Horata Karnataka would organise decentralised farmers’ conferences in different districts before the farmers’ march to Bengaluru on March 22.
“All the farmers’ organisations in the State have come together to mobilise farmers in ‘March to Bengaluru’ agitation scheduled for March 22. Thousands of farmers would lay siege to Vidhana Soudha on that day. National farmers’ leaders including Rakesh Tikait would participate in the agitation,” he said.
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