 India lives in its villages. Indian agriculture is the lifeline of a majority of people of the country. For the last few years, Indian agriculture has been going through a crisis. This crisis is visible in the form of a large number of farmers committing suicide, huge burden of debt that Indian farmers face and widespread crop failures and problems of that kind. The only problem that Indian agriculture faces is that it has ceased to be a remunerative activity. What the farmer spends to produce is often more than what farmers get as the value of its output. As a result, most farmers incur losses and even when the value of output is a little more than what the farmer has spent, it is insufficient to meet even the most minimum needs of a farm family. The problem of low profitability of agriculture is particularly acute for small and marginal farmers who constitute a vast majority of Indian peasants. Something like 86-87% of India's farmers incur losses in agriculture. Only about 14% of India's farmers who have large land holdings can get some surplus out of agriculture. Why is farming a loss-making activity? Farming is a loss-making activity because, one, the cost of production has risen. Inputs have become expensive. Inputs have become expensive because the government has been withdrawing subsidies that were provided on agricultural inputs. Seeds have become expensive. They are now produced by private companies in some cases by monopolies like Monsanto and they are very expensive. Farmers have to buy them from the market. Government has shifted fertilizer subsidies to what's called the nutrient-based subsidies, which has meant that fertilizer prices have risen steeply and farmers' costs on account of fertilizer have gone up. Privatization of power sector has meant that electricity costs have been rising. A flawed policy of petroleum has meant that diesel prices have been rising. All of this has accumulated to a rising cost of production for farmers. While on the one hand farmers have been facing increasing cost of production, the prices of agricultural produce which farmers get have not risen to compensate for this rise in input. As a result, farmers' agriculture become loss-making. Most agricultural products are not covered by a minimum support price and the farmers are left at the mercy of local traders. Government procures wheat and paddy that to only in a few states. There is almost no procurement for other crops like maize, cotton, vegetables, fruits, pulses, oil seeds. So even the MSP that is announced does not benefit the farmer as farmers cannot do anything if local traders offer a price below the minimum support price. Government provides no support even at this minimum price. To worsen the problem, the MSP over the last few decades has been kept low. It has increased very little, resulting in a greater burden on the farmer. Along with this, public expenditure for the rural economy and in particular an agriculture has been declining. From around late 1960s, when about 16% of planned outlay was spent on agriculture, it has fallen to less than 4%. So now not even 4% of the planned outlay in the latest last plan was on agriculture. This crisis of agriculture has meant that farmers have been on the streets all over the country. What started in Mansour in Madhya Pradesh last year spread to Maharashtra, to Tamil Nadu, to Rajasthan and in other parts of the country. Farmers have been demanding that they get better prices, that their debts be waived and agriculture needs to be protected. The Kisan Mukti Yatra of all India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee has travelled to all nooks and corners of the country. From tomorrow onwards, a massive Kisan Sanghsath is being organised outside the parliament in the capital. It is expected that lakhs of farmers will be in the capital raising the demands that agriculture, which is the lifeline of India's economy be protected. The issue is not just loan waivers, but the fact that in Indian agriculture, which is a lifeline, which is the source of livelihood for 400 million people of India needs to survive. The Kisan's loot has to stop. This country is indebted to its farmers and it is that debt to the farmers that the country needs to repay.