Farmers crying foul play: Potato growers will suffer badly

Farmers crying foul play: potato growers will suffer badly……..

Prices of potatoes have fallen and every one is happy……Does it mean that the farmer’s community also feels that way? No! Not surely. The input costs have ever been going up and the agro-produce every one expects to be cheaper. How it is possible? One has to rally see the inside story. Farmers never get the right price of their produce. I think that that there is urgent need for having Agriculture Reforms Commission or some sort of price regulating body to examine the need of fixing the remunerative prices to the farmers otherwise so called second green revolution shall never be the reality. It is not the farmers which get the benefit ultimately middle chain/men get the maximum advantage. Farmers are often left to face the wrath of weather Gods and natural calamities.

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This year it is expected that there would be bumper potato crop. It means lower prices of the produce at least for small farmers. Big farmers, who can afford to take their produce to Cold Storage, would also face music and hardship as the Cold Storage capacity is not in consonance with the out put. It means some of the produce either will remain at the door steps of the Cold Storages or has to be sold as agro-waste at no cost. This gap needs to be checked in and corrective measures put in place. Even the Govt. both at the central or state level should be ready with contingency plan of action. If the sad story of past few years is repeated I am sure that the farmers would switch over to some other crop and that would create the scenario what country had to face in case of pulses. With massive strength of feed back infrastructure why Govt. fails to guide the farmers as to what they should produce which would get them the right price is not looked at. I hope this requires very careful study and corrective action plan.

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Also important is to educate the need of altering the crop for preservation of the effective strength of the soil. I have noticed that there is no effective means to check this. Even in my own village I find farmers continue to go on taking the same crop year after year resulting lower out puts and inferior products. I had to counsel hard my family members to give a chance for the alternate crop so that crop rotation is accepted as a concept. In this bargain, we found out better harvesting and improved financial results. We tried Growing Banana as alternative crop for the potato. We could afford and thus are able create the alternative. But see the condition of UP West or UP East where Sugar Cane is still a cash crop and farmers carry on with this since many years with out giving any break. I think Agriculturist would support me when I say that the Crop Rotation is very important and has to be applied in our country not only as a concept but as a necessity. I must also admit that farmers have to resort to intelligent way of farming and work out well the economics of the whole game. After all it the family of the farmers which need good education, good marriages of their off springs, good health and nourishing diet, good clothing, all amenities as are being enjoyed by the citizens. Times have come when we have to redress issues of migration of villagers to urban areas in search of bread and butter and basics of the life. I think Govt. should also work out plan so that the educated mass which had left the villages return to their roots and think of settling down in their lost hamlets. Govt. has a big task ahead and prepares plans for good health care, availability of power in the villages, better law and order, good network of Roads and other communication needs. I think if our planning commission thinks in this direction and work out some plan that would do lot of good to this nation. I think the patronage which the industry gets from the Govt. same type of patronage needs to be extended to the agro-sector and sooner it is recognized as one of the salient point on the agenda of the Govt.

Healthy and economically strong farmers have become the need of the hour….then only we can think of achieving 9% + growth.