 The younger generation getting into agriculture has become a rarity now. So after a couple of decades, how is this industry going to thrive? Because there are no takers for agriculture. Well, I don't think it is true. It is true in one level, in one sense, but it is not true in another sense. But it is not the case that people are leaving farming at the pace that people think they are leaving, because there is nothing else to do also. You don't have a government that is working to serve the interests of the people of this country. You know, we are seeing this because of this neoliberal ideology about economic policy. Hello and welcome to NewsClick. The farmers have been holding sustained and massive struggles for the past several years. The major demands include MSPs and loan waivers, which have been denied by the governments for the past several decades. To discuss about the importance of MSPs, the demand for a farm loan waiver and other alternative policies proposed by the farmers, we have with us Professor Vikas Ravel of the JNU. Welcome, sir. So to begin with, the farmers of different organizations have come together to lead a lot of struggles in the recent few years. So what is the alternative policy you propose or the demand to overcome this sort of crisis which has been pending for the past few years? You see, if you look at it, the immediate problems that the presentry faces, the agrarian crisis that the country is seeing, the biggest problem is of incomes. That farmers, when they work to produce a crop, they know how much it is going to cost them to produce the crop, but they do not know how much will the produce fetch them. Whether they will make any profit at all or the entire labor will just go in vain. There is so much uncertainty about it. So this is the biggest problem and the way the neoliberal policies have gone, the neoliberal attack on agriculture has been such that input costs have risen very sharply. Things that were provided by the governments, seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, electricity, these are inputs that were provided at reasonable costs to farmers to make sure that agriculture remains remunerative. That has basically stopped. You know, the government has basically withdrawn the support from agriculture in such a way that farmers do not get very much income from what they produce. So there is a problem of low incomes and there is a problem of uncertainty of incomes. That has essentially created a situation where, on one hand, farmers are in distress. There is economic distress among farmers. Two, they are not able to, you know, really invest in agriculture and produce as much as they could be producing. So it is something that has also resulted in stagnation of agriculture. It has created misery among the peasantry and it has therefore sort of basically become a break on the entire economy. So that's the biggest problem that Indian agriculture is facing. Now, this doesn't have to be so. You know, we are seeing this because of this neoliberal ideology about economic policies and the whole neoliberal paradigm which is determining the nature of economic policies and how, in fact, farmers have been making those demands. They had this glorious struggle that lasted for 13 months against the farm laws which were essentially aimed at increased penetration of agribusiness companies. So to prevent that, farmers struggled very hard. But as part of that, they also had other demands. One of the biggest demands was of a statutory guarantee of the minimum support price. That farmer should get a guarantee that the minimum level of remuneration for the work that they do is ensured. That government will work to ensure that every farmer gets certain minimum income from what they do. Now, the conference discussed how this can be made possible, what are the alternative ways that this can be done. And the discussion centered around the need to, on the one hand, bring down cost of production by restoring the system of public subsidies and public support which result, which if ensured that farmers get inputs at reasonable prices. And on the other hand, creating facilities for storage, creating facilities for distribution in the public sector, among the, in the hands of the cooperatives and so on. So that's when necessary, if the prices fall, these agencies can step in to procure crops and produce from farmers and ensure that their incomes do not suffer. So these alternatives are possible. The question is that, you know, you don't have a government that is working to serve the interests of the people of this country. You don't have a government that's working to serve the interests of peasantry and workers of this country, but serves the interests of the big capital. So that is a problem. But if that political configuration changes, the policy alternatives are there. There are ways of ensuring that people have decent incomes. There are ways of ensuring that farm households, workers have decent incomes and that actually, that needs to be done. So you said that alternatives are possible. Besides the alternatives, the farmers are longing for a minimum support price for their producers for the past several years. Correct. Despite the submission of report by the Amazon and other commission and the JAR commission, a few decades back. Yes. The present dispensation is not at all considered granting the MSV for the major crops. So what is the importance of this MSV for the survival and the sustainability of the peasantry rights? You see, it's interesting. In 1964, JAR commission, which on the basis of recommendations of which the system of MSP was created, very categorically said that farmers have to be provided an assurance of a minimum price and that is crucial for agricultural development. That farmers and it said that government should have open-ended procurement at procurement centers and should create procurement center in far flung areas of the country where the problem of farmers not getting good prices is likely to be more severe. So it really gave a blueprint for what needs to be done. You see, in four, five decades since then, this has not been done. So you see, the point is that the understanding that assured remunerative prices are important for farmers has always been there. Okay, Swaminathan commission also talked about it. So, you know, it's been there in, you know, report after report of the government. Now, this needs to be done. Now, and this can be done. The point is that you need to have the conviction. You need to have the conviction that you need, you can't have a situation. Now, just think of it this way. Even in other businesses, if you have any business, I mean, you, when you set up a business, when you invest in a business, you have some sense of what you will produce, how much you will produce, and at what price it would sell. Now, it's incredible that the biggest industry of this country, which is agriculture, is run on the principle where the entrepreneur who's the farmer doesn't know what they are going to earn. That has to stop. And that's the reason why farmers are demanding a statutory guarantee of MSME. And the conference very clearly discussed a path, you know, that makes this possible. And that path goes through reversal of these neoliberal policies. These, look at the, what is happening to fertilizer in the recent last two years. There's been a huge crisis of fertilizers because we have followed neoliberal policies in the fertilizer sector. We have liberalized fertilizer pricing, deregulated fertilizer pricing, promoted the private sector, which has not made investment, but instead has relied on importing fertilizer. But now when you have a situation where the global supplies of fertilizer are short, you suddenly have a crisis. And this crisis is not just a minor crisis of shortage. You're talking of a, there's a particular time in the year, sowing season, when you need large quantities of fertilizer. If you don't get large quantities of fertilizer, you'll have, you'll have famine in this country. You'll have a massive problem of exacerbation of hunger and food insecurity. It's a strategic sector, okay? Now in that sector, you have compromised your sovereignty, you've compromised your self-sufficiency by privatizing the entire production process and by allowing private companies to import. And you now have a situation where they simply don't have enough to import. It's not available, the prices are too high. So even though government is now forced to bring back regulation, increase fertilizer subsidy, there is just not enough fertilizer for farmers. Now this is going to result in a massive problem of production in the country. This has been going on for the last two years and you know, the government is not bothered, they're just managing the headlines. Now the problem is that these are policies that can be reversed. You know, you can create a system where, and we've done it before, it can be done again. You can have a system in the public sector, in the cooperative sector, of production of fertilizers. That investment needs to be made. You need to make sure that the country is self-sufficient in supply of fertilizer so that nobody can dictate terms when it's sowing season for you. So you know, you need to basically reverse the neoliberal policies, make sure that farmers have an assurance of getting inputs at reasonable price and at that reasonable price, the crops that, the price that, the minimum price that their crop gets will be remunerative. It is only on that basis that farmers can be expected to, you know, keep investing and keep working and keep producing for the country. So that's, that can be done. So in the recent few years, government data itself admits that there are a lakhs of farmers who sell it. So this is, you know, though it existed even before 1991, the year when the neoliberal policies were implemented in our country, what is the role of these policies in increasing or accelerating this kind of a crisis in the economy? You see, so as I was saying, the problem is because these policies have made agriculture unprofitable, which then forces farmers to borrow. If you've invested in a crop and you're expecting to sell it at a certain price, but when the time comes, when you've harvested the crop, suddenly the price collapses and you can't even recover the cost that you have invested. Sometimes the situation is so bad that even the cost of harvesting you are produced and taking it to the market is not recovered. So you just abandon the crop in the field because it's not worth even harvesting. Things become so bad. Now in that situation, farmers are forced to borrow and these are times when no bank will lend money. You know, the rural, as part of the whole process of financial liberalization, the supply of credit to agriculture has also been curtailed. So you actually have a situation where you end up borrowing either from banks or you default, you are unable to repay your bank loans or you borrow from any lenders. Now all of this has resulted in a huge debt burden on the farmers and it is because of this that the farmers have been demanding for a debt waiver. It is... And then you have the problem of natural calamities. Suddenly there's a flood or a drought, it doesn't rain or a hail storm which results in crop losses. Now this entire sort of project of crop insurance has been handed over to private companies who are reluctant to give compensation to farmers. They are only interested in taking large handouts from government in the name of premium but they don't want to give compensation to farmers. So that results in a situation where farmers incur losses and end up becoming indicted. Now it is this huge debt burden which is the biggest cause of farmers committing suicide. Now there are two things that need to be done here. One is of course that as farmers have been demanding now for several years that there is a need for a debt waiver. That loans have to be waived. The farmers have... Those who have this huge debt, that debt waiver is needed. Now but that debt waiver is obviously only an immediate solution. It's a bandaid, it's a palliative that can be used for providing some immediate relief. But you also need to deal with the structural issues. You need to deal with the problem of why farmers get into indebtedness in the first place? Why do they become debt trapped in the first place? That also needs to be taken care for. So you need an immediate relief in the form of a debt waiver and you need to reverse the neoliberal policies to ensure that this problem doesn't keep reoccurring. The younger generation getting into agriculture has become a rarity now. So after a couple of decades, how is this industry going to thrive? Because there are no takers for agriculture. Well, I don't think it is true. It is true in one level, in one sense but it is not true in another sense. One is that farmers, people are not interested in farming because farming is not giving good incomes. But it is not the case that people are leaving farming at the pace that people think they are leaving because there is nothing else to do also. It is not as if that in non-agriculture, in other sectors of economy, there are a lot of good jobs being generated. There also the government is only thinking of making them sell pakodas. So it is not the case that non-agricultural economy is doing very well and people therefore are shifting out of agriculture for better jobs outside. Even that is not happening. So in fact, you have a situation where young people are forced to stay in agriculture in the misery that agriculture offers them. Despite the fact that agriculture is not giving incomes, agriculture cannot support such a large proportion of our population and therefore the need is... Now, there is a need for non-agricultural economy to grow and for decent jobs to be created outside agriculture so that some of these people can actually go and do other things. But that can also happen on the basis of incomes being generated in agriculture. Incomes have to be generated in agriculture so that these households have something to invest outside and do something else outside agriculture. But if agriculture does not generate incomes, how will they invest in doing anything? How will the diversification happen? So you have a catch-22 situation created because of this where agriculture becomes unremunerative and people who are dependent on agriculture cannot go out also and therefore there are more and more people actually dependent on agriculture while agriculture cannot support so much.