Hopes and despair in the agri sector persists!
May be we have to learn many more things in agriculture policy making!
There are reports from the Northern parts of India, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Haryana about the hailstorm and unseasonal rains in these major wheat growing states. Varying stages of Wheat crop harvesting are reported. Favouring some who had harvested the crop already, others who could harvest and were waiting for the suitable times also reported to have lost much of the half-growing fields.
The reports are very detailed and much as it is encounters with the actual farmers and farmers’ spokespersons, leaders in their own right. Let us hope the government had taken notice of the same, it is very
important for the country for safeguarding food security. As we also read in others parts of the world there are food shortages and the FAO, World Food Programme are attending to this problem. The point here is the importance of agriculture in any nation’s development priorities.
Food security comes first for any country. And for countries like a large populated country with a long history and still a long memory of repeated colonial history of repeated famines and vast devastations of the people it is almost a national mantra to secure for food security and for this goal to be achieved any sacrifice is worth taking. And luckily or unluckily even now in the 21st century when India is rated as one of the five big economies and in terms of population, the number one country in the world, any election promise, either by the biggest parties or by the smaller ones, it is food security that is seen now as top priority. The PM promises the moon, the other party assures a minimum income level security.
Either way, we have to recall agriculture as India’s great industry and everyone, the young and the old, the rich and the poor must dedicate their energies and their time for some time in their life to the great, why even the holy and divine crop of agriculture. See how countries like Janapoa where the emperor walks into the muddy field and plants the rice crop! In Thailand the emperor ploughs his tool with the bullocks drawing the plough and starts the agricultural season as religious rituals. Here in India, our political leaders have become hard minded ruthlessness when they make false promises to farmers.
Wipe out the farm loans! Write off the farm debts! Make farming profitable. Relax the regressive land reform laws! Let market forces come into play, step by step. Let the market forces push the educated, unemployed youth to the urban centres for productive jobs and decent earnings! These are the ways to move. Let not the past institutions setup long ago, during the Green Revolution days and before go away. Let us create afresh new institutions, be it for e-Marketing or even for Producers Associations, give power and funds and put in place experts and scientists in charge for new research, alternative crops, micro irrigation, new crops and new growing strategies, from Israel or from Netherlands.
The one university in Netherlands is the world’s largest exporter of flower and fruits, you know. We have to establish collaborations with the leading US agri universities, European universities and once we set up such high profile collaborations our laziness, as we see today in many of the agri universities may go away. We have to act, act fast. We cannot sit here and bemoan the crisis, the distress and the sad
talk of continuing farmer’s suicides. This is intolerable.
We appeal to all leaders of all sort of political parties, casteist or non-casteist ,please give some time for new thinking in agriculture. We at the Vadamalai Media, as we say, are dedicated to agriculture or more than half a century. We run many online initiatives, we run website www.agriculureinformation.com and videos, we interview agriculture experts and success stories and cater to lakhs of farmer’s subscribers. We answer all your queries. We invite all the state agri ministers to this service. Let us debate and discuss issues. So that we can hit at the right answers for many of the daunting questions!
Single handedly.
Please all of you support us, the state governments and the Chief Ministers, please do take notice of our appeal! Jai Hind!