Thursday, November 23, 2006

Mohan Dharia - Farm Debt Campaign

Farmer organizations of India need a two pronged strategy, to make the campaign on farm debt successful. At one level, they have to seriously consider the strategy of leaving their fields fallow for one year, growing only food grain crops for their family consumption, rather than the domestic or export market. This will assist the politicians like Shri Sharad Pawar and economists like ManMohan Singh and Montek Singh Ahluwalia, in importing foodgrains, from global markets, to their heart's content. This would also help in India, making a rapid entry into the good books of USA and Europe, and in lieu, getting their support on the nuclear and Security Council issues.
Secondly, farmer organizations must convince farmers that agricultural land is by no means a boon in modern India, rather, it is a liability for themselves and for their next generation. The sooner they discard their precious land and move en masse to cities, the better off they will be. If at all the Indian politicians, want them to remain chained to agriculture, the Government should take over ownership of all their agricultural lands, reorganize it into large profitable holdings, retrain farmers on how to adopt modern agricultural practices, and employ farmers, on a fixed salary, that is enshrined in the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations. This will be the correct way, of ushering in the Second Green Revolution in India, rather than just exhorting ignorant and bewildered farmers to stop taking their lives, and linking up with private sector and contract farming. Modern modes of production riding on the back of reorganized agricultural land, American agricultural practices, B-school management and marketing talents, snipping the farm dependant population of India to 10% of India's population is the only way forward.

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