so. finally Nattha died but alas!!....it again jst remained a story!!!
as we celebrate the 64th independence day, here comes a story (Peepli Live) which may not make u cry at home, but at least takes you out of hall with moist eyes (only for those who have at least once met any 'Nattha').... It makes you rethink is it the independence we wanted where the "food providers" have become "food seekers"???
bt will it make any impact on the system which is self-webbed in its own rules and regulations??......
we fire at the agitating farmers demanding for their basic rights whether land, water or fertilizers, the urban intelligentsia discards them as if they are not part of our society but we forget that they are truly our "Annadata".If they are in problm, we are in an even bigger problem.
The suicides of farmers was a regular feature until recent but the government claims tht these have abated after its debt exemption scheme.. but is that the case really??...
It is one thing to announce schemes and another to implement them 'effectively'..the governmrnt though has announced it but are we all not aware that hw easy it is in villages to borrow from the local 'Sahukar" then the govt. banks not to talk about the weakness of institutionalized credit mechanism for this purpose....Given this fact isn't it true that the govt has exempted only the credit that it has provided for farmers, but they owe much more to the local moneylenders and that is what the main cause of concern is.. bt since only these moneylenders are the main 'source' of politics, the govts. whether union or state, do not want to talk about it..
The second point is that its not just enough to exempt them from debt but it is also imperative that they be provided with necessary knowledge for technological upgradation and other structural reforms such as improved irrigation. In absence of this, to free themselves from poverty, they have resorted to measures like changing in crop pattern. In a recent report published in "The Hindu", most of the 'suicide' farmer families in vidharbha, have changed to "soya" from "cotton" as it is a more profitable crop, given the diminishing conditions for cotton and its high-cost intensive character. Also, soyabeen may be used both as food and commercial crop. This will definitely affect the overall crop pattern on country and a major change in export-import ingridients may be envisaged...
Thirdly, the 'hot favorite' biotechnological products in agriculture such as genetic crops are the new demons. Though highly productive and resistant to local bacteria and insects, GM seeds being patented products are not available in plenty and the company having the patent has the monopoly. Even if the seeds are made available at subsidized rates, after sometime the bacterias and insects against which it was resistant, develop resistance to these genes and again start thriving on these GM crops. The recent admission of the major GM seed company "Monsanto" with regard to the GM cotton seeds supplied in Karnataka, Mahrashtra and Gujrat corroborate this.
So have we lost the battle???....
Will we never be able to return to a situation where our farmers are proud of their profession???
well.....givem the gigantic magnitude of problems, prima facie it seems true. but when there is a will, there is a way....Given the fact, that we have the strongest bueraucray in the world, it is very much possible, only if we are able to extract a committment from them towards it. The policies to fight it out, be made much more targeted towards the benifitting group and addresing all aspects of the problem. Rather than having all the implementation and controls in its hands, administration should promote participation of local public in solving it.e.g distributing credit through instiutionalized structure, govt. should promote the micro-financing at lower interest rates through self-help groups. Also, the anciliary activities to agriculture such as animal husbandry, poultry farms should be promoted so that in case of crop failure, there is an alterante source of income available. Along with the structural reforms, institutional reforms are also the need of the hour to improve the agricultural productivity.Last but not the least, the role of media has to be that of a communicator not an instigator. Just to increase the TRPs the story of farmer suicides should not be made fancy, rather they need to be dealt with more sensitively.
all with this, we can hope that we have no more Natthas dying.......
No comments:
Post a Comment