Demanding complete loan waiver, minimum support price for their yield and an assurance of permanent minimum income from the Government, tens of thousands of farmers on Friday started a 10-day protest across seven States. The farmers threw thousands of litres of milk and several quintals of tomatoes on streets and threatened to cut off supply to cities.
The protesting farmers have also stopped the supply of milk, vegetables and essential farm produce due to which the vegetable prices in the market have gone up. Many farmer organisations across India have called for “Gaon bandh” from June 1-10 during which no farm produce would be allowed to be transported out of villages. Only three trucks reached Nashik mandi that gets 300 trucks of produce in a day.
The Rashtriya Kisan Mahasangh (RKM), a federation of 130 farmer organisations, is spearheading the protests. The seven States where the protests are being held are: Haryana, Rajasthan, Jammu & Kashmir, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala.
On Day 1 of the strike, there has been no supply at all in Punjab except for Amritsar. In Punjab, farmers in Faridkot stopped the supply of vegetables, fruits, and milk, while in ludhiana’s Samrala, they spilled milk on the road. The cost of vegetables has risen by 50 per cent in Punjab. In Haryana, the supply of vegetables, fruits, and milk was reduced by 40-50 per cent.
Milk supply is fully stopped in Rajasthan’s Sri Ganganagar, Hanumangarh, Jhunjhunu. In Indore, prices of vegetables have gone up by 400 per cent and in Bhopal prices are up by 70-80 per cent.
Most recently, farmers in the State took to the streets to protest when garlic prices slumped to as low as Rs 1 per kg, with the Madhya Pradesh Government’s flagship Bhavantar scheme proving to be of little use. Similar were the situations in other States too.
In Delhi’s mandis, the supply of vegetables, fruits and other items was under control. “The situation will be aggravated If the protest continue for day after tomorrow,” said Rajendra Sharma.
“We have decided to observe a Bharat Bandh on June 10 till 2 pm. I would like to request all the businessmen of cities to close their shops till 2 pm and pay tribute to farmers who have lost their lives in previous years,” Shiv Kumar Sharma, president of RKM, said.
“In order to create pressure on the market, we are not going to sell it to the dealers. We asked them to go for barter so that our farmers are not impoverished further. It is simple; milk producers will exchange their goods with vegetable producers and so forth,” said Pushpendra Singh, local farm leader in Madhya Pradesh.
Surender Singh, who is leading the protest in Amritsar, said that farmers in Punjab have been distressed for a long time now. “We have decided to stop supply of produce to the markets. This will create an automatic panic in the food market and the Government will have to listen to us. We have strictly asked all farmers not to waste their produce by throwing it on streets. This is being done just to portray our importance to the outside world which has neglected our existence,” Singh added.
According to Binod Pandey of All India Kisan Mahasanghtan, the issues the farmers are pressing for are minimum assured income of Rs 18,000 per month for every agriculturist’s family, implementation of Swaminathan Commission’s report, a price for their produce that gives them 50 per cent more than the total weighted cost of production and waiver of all loans.
Meanwhile, Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh said that the Government is open to talks with farmers.