NO STRENGTH FOR THE “STRENGTH OF THE COUNTRY”
Farmers are the strength of our country. We all aware that they are called as the “backbone of the country”. Having such an important role in the country, we see a lot of injustice happening to those golden seeds of our country’s economy backbone. In the aspect of law we find no perfect law supporting farmers.
INTRODUCTION :
Farmers are the one who cultivates and produces foe each and every person surviving. In India farmers are respected more than any professional and agriculture is the most respected occupation. The contribution of agriculture in the country’s GDP is more than any other sector. There are approximately 11.4 million farmers in India. It is believed that farming is the most precious thing to do than any other job from our ancient times. Agriculture is also the source for raw materials for any manufacturing products. It consists many sources and so became a part in providing capital formation, national income, and economic growth.
Agriculture is the sector which is connecting to various sectors. It is the largest livelihood in India. Most of the people are depending on the agriculture sources. Nearly 70% of people in India are dependent on agriculture in our country. But there is no perfect figure on the number farmers present in the country. As per the 2011 population census there are 11.3 crore cultivators in India. But some sources argue that there are more number than 11.3 but it was not sure as there was no conformation from the public during surveys. Agriculture contributes 17% to the total GDP and provides employment to 60% of people.
PROBLEMS FACED :
Being such an ancient profession, current technical people are not much interested in agriculture. These technical people are interested in neither their problems nor their hard work of farmers. Now a days farmers are facing many problems including legal and natural.
There has been a scarcity of seeds from many days. Seed is the important and critical input for gaining higher crop yields and sustainable improvement in agricultural production. These days the quality of seed has been reduced and the price has been increases which made difficult for small and marginal farmers to buy qualified seeds. Other inputs like manures, fertilizers and biocides qualities are not much at lower prices. The use of those manures and fertilizers was made important these days as the soils have been used for ages and resulting in low productivity. There are also natural problems faced by farmers like irrigation problems due to lack of rain. There are also problems faced in obtaining a bank loan. And the rural areas aren’t much developed which is making the livelihood in rural areas difficult.
MAIN ISSUE :
Apart from the above mentioned problems there are some other main problems faced by the farmer. Farmers are not allowed to sell their own product on their own price. When we take a look on whole process that farmer is involved, at first farmers brings all the inputs like seeds, fertilizers, manures either with his own money or by money bought as debt. Later he performs his crop work for nearly six months and was supposed to sell the product and pay the debt. He loads all his product into a vehicle and go to the mandi. Mandi is a place where all the farmers sell their product. A person from the Agriculture Marketing Committee (APMC) quotes some random price considering the demand and supply curve. Either it is high or low than the farmers hard work, he was supposed sell his product at the price declared by APMC.
Here raises the main issue. There was no guarantee whether the price announced was really helpful to farmer. Middlemen make use of this price which is declared by APMC and buy products from farmers. Later the middlemen sell the bought products at a very high price in market. This is creating loss to both farmer and consumer. The consumer faced loss by buying at high price and the farmer by selling his valuable price at lower price.
In India there are many central laws regarding agriculture like
Multi-state Cooperative Societies Act,1984
The Seeds Act, 1966
Plant Varieties and Farmers Right Act, 2001
Co-operative Societies Act,1912
The Agricultural Produce Act,1937 .
All the laws present are related to seeds, varieties and cooperative societies. We can find that there are no supportive laws for farers as per the issues mentioned above. Even though the Mandis are now made to set a reasonable price, the middleman are taking more advantage of profiting than farmers.
There are also many people who say that letting farmers sell their products on their own prices might lad to many economical issues. In such an aspect we should accept some facts that farmers are not aware of any demand and supply curves. If a farmer quotes cost, the buyer will have him lower it unless the market informs him otherwise. If he quotes a reasonable price, every farmer offering high cost will leave him alone with his produce unsold. Even the buyer has the advantage of exporting finished goods and importing agricultural technology that will aid the farmer but has not done so.
Considering this aspect is also good. We cannot give the lead to the farmer to set the price of the product who has no good enough knowledge about economics. But it is compulsory to make sure that the farmer is benifited for his hard work. To make to possible laws making sure that farmer is benifited can be made. The law should be protecting farmers from being cheated by middlemen and also strict surveillance in APMC regarding the price declared and also the an investigation on the illegal activities being performed.
CONCLUSION :
Agriculture is the sector surviving in India from long number of years. Agriculture is a sector which is connected to many sectors. It is the largest source of livelihood in India It is the source of many people. To 70% of people in India agriculture is the primary source of livelihood. It contributes 17% to the total GDP and provides employment to nearly 60% of people. Being such an important profession there are no proper laws supporting farmers. There is no proper legal support provided. It would be helpful if a law is made to make sure that the products are held at valuable price and farmers are not cheated by middlemen.
Author: Duvvuru Sravya Reddy,
Ifim Law School, 1st year, BBA LLB student