‘Ease Of Doing Farming’ Is The Best Bet To Save Farmers From Future Misery

All eyes are on grabbing farm lands and that too by denying them the right compensation. There are numerous such examples where farmers are bashed by police when they protest their land being acquired at throwaway prices

A few days back, a picture shared on the social media depicted the rising vexation and the continuing plight of farmers. Looking at the picture again, which had gone viral earlier, one could feel the indifference, apathy and persecution that farmers encounter every other day.

The picture itself is painful. It showed an elderly farmer standing at the heap of unsold paddy in a Punjab mandi with folded hands. He was standing in front of a senior district administrator, who was accompanied by other senior officials.

Probably the district administrator was only trying to listen to the farmer’s woes at a time when paddy was not being lifted at its normal pace, but the fact that farmers feel so helpless and hapless that they plead with folded hands before the administration to rescue them, is rather unfortunate.

That the people who feed the country are so desperate that they have to literally beg the government officials to push the rate of sluggish paddy procurement so as to enable them to market the harvested crop and then get the fields ready for sowing the next crop, itself shows how insensitive the system has become to the acute crisis farmers are being gradually pushed into. After producing a record paddy harvest this year, farmers waiting endlessly in the mandis to market the harvested grain reflect the complacency with which the governments – both the Centre and State – are treating farmers with.

“If we can’t even sell our crop in time, please tell me. Why should my children have to undergo this torture again and again.” a visibly frustrated Sukhjit Singh, a farmer sitting over heaps of paddy bags in Ferozepur mandi, asked me.

“I would instead like my children to migrate to Canada or Australia”, he added.

Another farmer categorically said “we are being punished for forcing the government to withdraw the three contentious farm laws. Perhaps the government has forgotten the days when it was the Punjab farmers alone who had pulled the country from a hunger trap.”

I was rendered speechless.

This reminds of two other incidents which failed to shake up the society from the growing impassiveness towards the farming community. Only a few days back, we saw a short video of a Madhya Pradesh farmer rolling on floor with folded hands at the Collector’s office in Mandsaur to reclaim his ‘stolen’ land.

According to a news report, the farmer said that he has appealed to the President, Prime Minister and the state Chief Minister to help him get back his land allegedly by a government official working there. I am not sure whether he finally got a patient hearing from the Collector and an appropriate action initiated against the said official, but the question that bothers me is why the poor farmer’s grievances should not be addressed as quickly as the industry complaints are addressed and disposed of.

Just like Ease of Doing Business a similar initiative for Ease of Doing Farming certainly can be launched.

Another incident that comes to my mind is equally hurting. A Karnataka farmer from Shimoga district was asked to rush to pay back the outstanding amount against a bank loan he had taken some months back. Media reports say, with no transport available, the farmer preferred to walk for about 15 km to reach the bank. And when he reached, he had told that what he had to pay back was only Rs. 3.46. The callousness with which the bank asked the farmer to rush to clear the pending amounts speaks volumes about the double role the banks play.

To the farmers, even a petty outstanding amount turns into a panic situation for a bank, but when it comes to defaulting corporate, hundreds of crores of bad loans are written off in one stroke. For the records, more than Rs. 15 lakh crore of outstanding corporate loans have been written off in the last 10 years.

It is therefore heartening to see the Supreme Court show empathy towards farmers when it dismissed a case filed by the Karnataka government challenging a High Court’s order enhancing compensation for the land acquired from farmers for the purpose of construction of Hipparagi major irrigation project in Krishna River. It was really magnanimous on the part of Justices Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan to turn down Karnataka’s plea saying farmers are a distressed lot and the State, where thousands of farmers die by suicides annually, must allow them to survive.

According to another media report, 8,245 farmers have committed suicide between 2013 and 2024. In just five months, between April and August of this year, 1,214 farmers in Karnataka have died by suicides as per the official data.

“The farmers are a distressed lot. If you don’t want to pay the enhanced compensation, why don’t you return the land,” the Supreme Court bench said. As the bench observed, farmers needed a fair compensation and that cannot be denied to them. The kindness and benevolence that the Supreme Court has demonstrated in this case should become a norm rather than exception.

This brings me to the bigger question as to why the official system cannot exemplify humaneness and a big heart when it comes to dealing with farmers. Why does the system – down from the top at the Centre to the lowest revenue official in the district – be more compassionate and be generous towards farmers. Why should a farmer roll at the Collector’s office to get a hearing, and why should a farmer walk for 15 km to pay an outstanding amount of Rs 3.46? Why should an aggrieved farmer stand with folded hands before a district official, and that too for no fault of his?

More so, it is well known that in the name of development, all eyes are on grabbing farm lands and that too by denying them the right compensation. There are numerous such examples where farmers are bashed by police when they protest their land being acquired at throwaway prices. Tribals are hounded out of the forests and the trees mercilessly cut when their land is needed for corporate. Similarly, I find that the average consumer is not even willing to pay farmers a higher price for their produce.

Talk of an assured and a profitable price for farmers’, and the troll on social media begins to lash out against farmers.

This must change and the sooner the better.

After all, even 76 years after Independence, Indian farmers are at the lowest rung in the society when it comes to farm incomes. With an average monthly income of Rs. 10,218 the entire effort is to short-change them and treat them inhumanly as if they are the children of a lesser god.

Let’s be considerate towards them. Let’s provide them dignity, which, in turn, helps restore pride in farming.

(The author is a noted food policy analyst and an expert on issues related to the agriculture sector. He writes on food, agriculture and hunger)