Declaring that farm suicides are policy genocide, the prominent farmer leaders from across the country on Friday made it clear that the farmers, from now onwards, will set the political agenda on their own terms.
Coming under a common umbrella federation “Kisan Ekta”, 40 prominent farmer organisations from India have declared that farming community will soon have a federal body like CII, exclusively for the farming sector.
leaders from these 40 farmer groups had been participating in the first three-day convention where farming expert Devender Sharma was also present among them for discussions.
Briefing about the deliberations of the convention, Devender Sharma said that the Kisan Ekta has been launched as a forum to convince the Government to make farmer-centric policies at the state and national level.
He claimed that out of around 65 prominent farmer groups across the country, nearly 50 have been brought on this forum and the rest will be brought on this platform soon.
“3.05 lakh farmers had committed suicide in the last 20 years and this year, since July, 394 suicides by farmers have been reported in Karnataka only. The situation is so alarming that two farmers are committing suicide every hour somewhere in the country,” said Sharma.
He said that the
mechanisms adopted by the Commission of Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) had always been faulty and due to discrepancies in the
mechanism of pricing of
agricultural produce, the farming community had been suffering for long.
Provision of compensation for the farmer’s family who commits suicide is the need of the hour and Kisan Ekta has prepared a four-point charter in the beginning, including re-organization of CACP where the value of produce is fixed keeping a farmer centric approach.
Bharatiya Kisan Union (Rajewal) president Balbir Singh Rajewal said that the Government should ensure that every farmer at least earns equal to what a Class III employee earns.
“A social security fund is needed for farmers and the federation has proposed that Government can deduct 0.50 percent of every farmer’s
produce to make a fund for such an arrangement,” he said.
Rajewal added that BKU has decided to hold a protest on August 27, on the issue of sugarcane farmer’s dues.