Taking note of farmer welfare, the Kerala way

Context: The political allegations levelled against the State in the context of the farmers’ protest are far removed from the facts.

• For more than a month now, farmers are writing a new history, camping at the borders of Delhi.
• In some manner, the upsurge by these farmers resembles the ‘Occupy Wallstreet Movement’ in the United States, in 2011, whose slogan reverberates even today across the world: “We are the 99 percent”.

Unflinching willpower

• The government might have thought that the farmers would retreat to their villages after a couple of days or a week at the most, but this is not the mood at all among the farmers.
• A self-contained lifestyle with all necessary arrangements for food, shelter, clothing, and sanitation are in place, represent the unflinching will of a people who consider agriculture as their culture.
• Their utmost proximity to soil and nature has tempered them as steel, while helping them remain calm and cool at the same time.
• The firefighters in the government are stubborn in saying that there can be no compromise on the implementation of the three Farm Bills.
• But these sons and daughters of the soil, who sow the seeds of hope to feed their fellow beings, have maintained inimitable self-restraint.
• Their struggle, their unity, their patience, and the massive nature of their battle are having an impact on the cohesive nature of the ruling alliance, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA).
• The government expected the farmers to tire out and slowly retreat from the battlefront. But it is mistaken.
• The determination by the farmers to go on with the struggle is only strengthening by the day.

The situation in Kerala

• There are no Agricultural Produce Market Committees (APMCs) and mandis in Kerala, the concept of the Minimum Support Price is not prevalent in the State.
• Mandis regulated by an APMC are not in existence in Kerala. But it does not mean that the interests of farmers are not taken care of in the State.
• In fact, Kerala is the State where farmers’ rights are being protected by the government itself, and much more effectively than any other Indian State.
• While the government of India has fixed the procurement rate for rice at ₹18 a kg, the Left Democratic Front government in Kerala is procuring rice from cultivators at ₹27.48 a kg.
• In the same manner copra (dried coconut) is also procured at a much higher rate in Kerala than the price announced by the central government.
• Kerala is the State where increased basic price is ensured not only for paddy but also vegetables and fruits.
• Sixteen such items are enlisted by the government where the basic prices (per kg) are guaranteed. To cite some of them, tapioca (₹12), banana (₹30), garlic (₹139), pineapple (₹15), tomato (₹8), string beans (₹34), ladies’ fingers (₹20), cabbage (₹11) and potato (₹20).
• Apart from crop insurance, paddy cultivators will get the royalty in Kerala at the rate of ₹2,000 per hectare.
• In 2006, when farmers’ suicides became the order of the day across the country, the Left Front government introduced a debt relief commission that extended a helping hand to the farmers, thereby saving them.

The corporate stamp

• This is the reality of the farm Bills. Though they claim ‘to enable’ the protection and the empowerment of farmers, the truth is just the opposite.
• The purpose of these laws is the enabling of the corporatisation of Indian agriculture and the introduction of contract farming.
• When Ministers continue to assure the continuance of mandis they are practically pushed out of the scene, as it happened in Madhya Pradesh and elsewhere.
• The annadatas know that these laws would ruin the backbone of the agricultural economy and badly affect the food security of India.
• The farmers are in the struggle in order to prevent such a calamity from happening.

https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/taking-note-of-farmer-welfare-the-kerala-way/article33475184.ece?homepage=true