Make farming more remunerative

The speakers underlined the need to promote agro-based industry in the rural areas so that farming could become a remunerative profession again.

Dr Sucha Singh Gill, head of the Economics Department, Punjabi University, in his key-note address called upon farmer organisations to come out with figures of suicides by farmers as there had been no systematic study on the issue so far. He, however, expressed his opposition to the waiving off of farm loans which, he said, may send wrong signals. Only the recovery of farm loans could be postponed or part of the interest waived off, he added.

Gill said cooperatives should be set up to link agriculture and industry. He favoured setting up of small agro-based units which could undertake processing of wheat and paddy and these units could be run on co-operative basis so that the farmers gained both from the production and processing of crops.

On the issue of diversification of crops being advocated by the government as one of the solutions to the dwindling profits in farming, Dr Gill said that the government had still not finalised how the new crops would be marketed and this could leave the farmers at the mercy of the private traders.

Dr Gill called for a review of the entire farming system. He said while the procurement of food grains was finalised by the government, the prices of the farm inputs including fertilisers and pesticides etc were fixed by private companies, much to the disadvantage of the farmers.

BKU (Ekta) general secretary Gurmeet Singh Dittapur said farmers of the state had been made to believe that the Green Revolution would help them. But, instead the machinery good suppliers and fertiliser and pesticide companies became the main profit makers, he said, and added that what could be the scope of earning profit when it cost Rs 2,810 to produce an acre of wheat and Rs 4,985 for an acre of paddy according to a latest study. Moreover, he said, increase in cost of production was not reflected in its present day sale price.

Peoples Action Committee president Dr Dalbir Singh Deb said some farmers had committed suicide in Barnala area because a farmer would take a loan for farming and many a times would not be able to return the same. He said studies showed that as many as 60 per cent of the farmers took loans from arhtiyas who charged varying rates of interest.

BKU (Ekta) president Pashora Singh said it was wrong to say that farmers under debt because they were spending much more on dowry, social obligations, luxuries and liquor.

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