‘Food security legislation will add to farmers' woes'

The Hindu Business Line - January 23, 2012

The proposed National Food Security Act will add to the woes of the already suffering farmers of the country, unless the Union Government takes the necessary safeguards before formulating and implementing it, according to Dr Y. Sivaji, the honorary president of the AP Virginia Tobacco Growers' Association.

Dr Sivaji is one of the experts invited by the Union Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, for pre-budget consultations earlier this month. He said he had submitted to the minister that the prime concern of the Union Government would be to rein in the fiscal deficit and therefore, it would tend to keep the foodgrain prices depressed, in view of the huge anticipated financial burden. This would work against the interests of farmers.

Further, he suggested that the loopholes in the present public distribution system should be plugged before implementing the proposed Act. “Never in the history of India have we produced so much foodgrain as we do now, if we consider just one aspect related to the sector. We are expected to record 240 million tonnes of foodgrain this crop year even as our warehouses are overflowing with previous years' stocks. Yet, farmers continue to end their lives in their hundreds, year after year and some of them choose to declare a crop holiday in some areas. The winds of liberalisation have not touched them. The tragedy is that the farm sector is booming even as farmers are sinking,” he observed in a written note to the Finance Minister.

He said the root problem lay in the farmers not getting remunerative prices for their produce. “The costs of production have been spiralling year after year because of the steep increase in prices of inputs and also wages in the wake of implementation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. But the MSP for many crops is not remunerative and farmers are not getting even the un-remunerative MSP. There is no institutional mechanism to ensure it,” he noted.

He noted that “the rhetoric of inclusive growth is a cruel joke, as the rural sector is badly neglected. We are sitting on a social volcano which may explode any time. I submit that the Government should not neglect agriculture since it provides livelihood to 63 per cent of our population besides providing food for the entire nation. It supplies raw materials to industry and provides a market for the industry and service sectors.”

REMEDIAL STEPS

He suggested some remedial steps including constituting of Commissions on Agricultural Costs and Prices at the State level, decentralisation of procurement, and linking the MSP to spiralling input costs as is done in Dearness Allowance calculation. The difference between the MSP and recommended cost of the State agencies should be met as bonus by the State Governments. The abolition of all curbs on the marketing of agriculture produce within or outside the country was of utmost importance, he added.

Conversion of crop loans into key (pledge) loans soon after harvesting, strengthening the Agricultural Insurance Corporation, and promoting the seed village concept were some of the other steps that he recommended.

He wanted NREGP implementation to be restricted to the non-agricultural season. Further, he sought FDI in agricultural processing industry, especially in the tobacco sector.He also wanted the development of a farmer's welfare index on the lines of the UNDP human development index.