Punjab Progressive Agriculture Summit organised by the Punjab Government for discussing challenges faced by the farmers with the experts in the field failed to bloom, as its perceived purpose was pruned on Sunday by mike-yielding politicians. In poll mode, they missed no chance to attack UPA-led Central Government and its failure to make agriculture profitable.
The inaugural session attended by the Chief Ministers of at least four States was virtually hijacked by on-the-dais politicians. The scientists and other farm experts were relegated to the position of mute spectators, as the summit virtually turned into a one-of- those political rallies which are held just before the parliamentary polls.
Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal clarified that the event was “non-political”. But, the very absence of politicians owing allegiance to the Congress and the tenor of the attack on the Congress-led Central Government made it evident that the intention was to discuss more than just farming with the agriculturists.
“This Summit is a non-political event focusing on the crisis engulfing peasantry and farm labour in our country today and to find viable solution for it. I had invited all the Chief Ministers, asking them to come together on one platform, work hand-in-hand for the farmers irrespective of political affiliations,” said Badal.
The convention, no wonder, failed to grow on the farmers who have come from across the country, as they huddled together in the cold waiting for topics of their interest to be taken up. For them, the cold, and the wait, was endless, apparently.
The opening session started with political speeches. It ended on the same note. Besides Punjab Chief Minister, his counterparts from Madhya Pradesh Shivraj Singh Chouhan, Chhattisgarh
Dr Raman Singh, and Uttar Pradesh Akhilesh Yadav assailed the Centre on the issues of low MSP (minimum support price), increasing rates of fertilisers, ineffective insurance scheme for farmers, among other things.
While all these leaders took the centre stage, the farm experts — agri-expert Dr Gurdev Singh Khush, Punjab Farmers’ Commission head
Dr GS Kalkat, Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) director general Dr S Ayyappan, USA’s International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre director general Dr Thomas lumpkin, and other dignitaries could not speak a work owing to “shortage of time”.
leading the attack, Chouhan pressed for making agriculture profitable by giving suitable cost for farmers’ produce, bringing down input cost, making an individual farmer eligible for compensation as a single entity instead of the entire area, overhauling insurance policy, change in crop pattern, and other things.
Chouhan demanded that MSP should be decided on the basis of actual cost of input and 50 per cent profit. The three-time Chief Minister blamed the policymakers who take decisions, “formulate policies, sitting in big buildings and know nothing about agriculture… Ministers, babus visit other countries, in fact it should be the farmers who should be taken to other countries as they are ones who have to do farming”.
In unison, Chhattisgarh Chief Minister too demanded that MSP should be decided on the basis of inflation, the day-by-day increasing input cost, among other things.
Blaming the Centre for damaging crops in the wake of insufficient infrastructure and lack of policies on distribution and storage, Raman Singh said: “While the states are becoming surplus in production, the Centre is not procuring the food grains, and grains rot lying in open. Till it could not buy the produce, the Centre should decide on distribution and storage of the same so that food grains don’t decay.”
Andhra Pradesh’s former Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, joining the line of attack, accused the Centre for having useless national insurance scheme for farm sector by giving permission to the private companies to operate the same.
“The farmers are not made aware regarding the scheme,” he said, demanding the implementation of the farm expert Prof MS Swaminathan led committee’s recommendations.
Bihar Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh, in addition to the profitable pricing of produce, suggested to come up with a policy to provide quality seeds to the farmers, besides setting up a chain of Krishi Vigyan Kendra across the country.
“I urge Chief Minister Badal to lead the country’s farmers to seek setting up of Krishi Vigyan Kendra across the country to acquaint the farmers with new techniques and right methods…there is need for profitable price.
Taking the charge, Badal laid blame on Congress-led central Government for Punjab’s crisis. He took on the Centre for take away State’s subject agriculture, and deciding on the rates of farm inputs, including fertilisers, diesel.