Congress had organized a Chief ministerial conclave in Nainital. The Chief Ministers of Congress-ruling states were asking the central government to act on their agricultural-related demands related as agrarian crisis is the biggest problem facing by several states in India.
Nilu writes on the non-seriousness of the conclave on Recursive Hypocrisy as Agriculture Minister Sahard Pawar was not available in the Conclave to give answers to CMs’ queries on problems of farmers.
The Finance Minister was there for giving the answers. The demands were such as to increase farm credit, decrease interest rates and write off bad loans. The Finance Minister rejected it by saying that it was primarily a state subject.
All CMs were asking to provide soft loans to a farmer that was imperfect demand. Imperfect because these demands cannot help either to the farmers or to agriculture.
He writes as every farmer in this country does get a loan at an interest rate of 5%. Will that solve the crises? Firstly, what are the crises? Do they stop with suicides in Vidarbha? Or do they extend to the abysmal yield in the rest of the country? To start with, there simply isn’t any real investment in technology or innovation in this area. Farm credits, crop insurance and support prices are only measures to help those in misery. What about solutions that result in yields which would make agriculture a viable profession? How about the land ceiling act that encourages subsistence farming? Where are the infrastructure projects like building cold storage facilities?
