Guest column written by NR Ganesh Babu

Recent reports suggest that hundreds of farmers in Andhra Pradesh have committed suicide. This has been happening for the last couple of years. We have recently seen reports of farmer suicides in Maharashtra. The evil is bound to spread to other Indian States in the near future. This is bound to happen as India progresses in the Cities. The Government Administration concentrates mainly on Cities and its needs now, more than ever, since most of the revenue to the exchequer comes from the fast developing cities. Bad Effects of Globalization? Ah !

India has got 70% of the population depending on Agriculture. Much of this crowd is into trading and distribution of the agricultural produce. The real farmers – including small land owners and the workers employed in the agriculture fields are the ones who are exploited the most by these traders. These real, poor farmers are the ones suffering the most and are committing suicide in large numbers.

The problem, to the uninitiated, is the traders fix-up [pre-fix] a price for the day and buy the agricultural produce at a very low cost from the farmers. The traders form a cartel of sorts during the trading. The poor farmer has no choice but to sell the produce to one of these traders. The traders in turn sell at fancy prices and make a hell-a-lot of money in the transaction. The system just does not allow the farmer access to the retail market. The filthy rich traders just do not figure in the Income Tax Payers’ List! While the Government subsidizes the farmers, the actual beneficiaries seem to be the traders.

To overcome this, I feel the Indian Government can nationalize agricultural fields along with river waters. In turn the Government can employ farmers and start producing grains and other agricultural produce. Government can also infuse new technology to increase the throughput of the fields, to match the Chinese throughput [tons/hectare].

The immediate benefits of this measure, as I see it are:

· Farmer-suicides are stopped

· Elimination of Traders to a great extent – this in turn will bring down the cost of food grains to the consuming masses in the entire Nation

· State Marketing Agencies can take over the Marketing Management of the Produce

· An opportunity to infuse latest agricultural technology

· Water disputes among States ceases to exist

· Losses to the Electricity Boards on account of Electricity thefts and subsidy is eliminated once and for all

· No more opportunity for Political Parties to play up with Farmers’ Votes

· Reduction in migration of rural distraught farmers migrating to the Cities, in search of jobs

· Reduction in poverty among the rural masses

· Employment generation among the rural masses

· Reduction in corruption in this sector

· Great reduction in Black money generation

· Fall in Real Estate prices

The immediate negative fallout could mostly be political in nature. The party that is in power, State and Center, could lose the next election. And big landlords might create law and order problems for couple of weeks. However considering long term benefits these negative fallouts are just bits of dust for the police forces. Maybe some lives might be lost in the bargain. But considering the number of lives saved in the long run, this risk is definitely tradable.

No…I am not a Communist…I believe in True Democracy!!!

Long Live the Great Indian Farmer.

Any comments…please?

Cheers!!!

Ganesh Babu N R

PS: The idea of nationalizing cultivable lands in India struck me today. This idea could have been thought upon by someone else and published elsewhere…in such an event I do not claim originality of idea. Thanks in Advance.