The Indian government has time and again stressed on the need to shift large populations from the rural to the urban areas. Devinder Sharma argues that the government is successfully doing this by “trying to make agriculture uneconomical to such an extent that farmers are forced to abandon farming and migrate.” He also convincingly argues that with proper support from the government, farming in India can be made financially viable and then we will not be forced to resort to costly imports. Good article. A must-read for our pea-brained policy makers.
Here is an excerpt from that article titled ‘Farming it out’,
The message is loud and clear. It is time the farmers start packing up. They are no longer required to produce food for the country.
First it was wheat imports. And now, the government moves a step ahead. It has offered to extend financial support to Indian companies that are willing to cultivate oilseeds and pulses in neighbouring countries like Myanmar and then import it into India.
The policy shift comes at a time when finance minister P Chidambaram has categorically stated that the country’s food requirement can be met by 20 per cent of the existing farmers.
Farming is being gradually moved to foreign countries. The move spells a death-knell for millions of small and marginal farmers. Prime minister Manmohan Singh has time and again stressed on the need to shift large populations from the rural to the urban areas. Moving people out of agriculture and employing them in industry and service sectors is the official approach.
To make this possible, the government is first trying to make agriculture uneconomical to such an extent that farmers are forced to abandon farming and migrate.
Shifting cultivation of oilseeds and pulses, both being crops of marginal areas and abundantly grown in environmentally harsh dryland regions of the country, to neighbouring countries is one such flawed policy initiative.
You can read the full article here.
Source: DNA
