Farmers

Problems in the agriculture sector increased over the years. So many years after independence, Indian agriculture still depended on monsoons, and proved to be a gamble. The Narendra Modi government had declared its intention of doubling farmers’ income in real terms by 2022, moving away from the historical focus on increasing production. New crop insurance scheme and higher funding for irrigation to counter weather risks were announced by the NDA government.

Several schemes were rolled out for the agriculture sector. The government tried introducing some new ideas at the beginning of the term, such as neem-coated urea, soil health cards, and crop insurance, but the crisis in agrarian sector was not resolved. A number of marketing reforms were initiated to create ‘one nation, one market’ in agriculture.

An attempt was made to get farmers to sell online. But as the subject of agriculture is a state subject, reforms needed to be endorsed by the states. The APMC Act could not be reformed.

The government agreed to the demand for a higher minimum support price. In 2019, it announced the central sector scheme, ‘Pradhan Mantri KIsan SAmman Nidhi (PM- KISAN)’. The aim was to supplement the financial needs of the farmers in procuring various inputs to ensure proper crop health and appropriate yields, commensurate with the anticipated farm income. This followed the announcement in the interim budget of February 2019 that farmers with less than five acres each, who account for over 85 per cent of India’s farm holdings, would get Rs 6,000 each annually.

Over the years, India became self-sufficient in food grains, but a large number of farmers remained impoverished. The sector suffers from some basic problems which no government has been able to tackle. The young gradually left farming as an occupation preferring to migrate to the towns and cities. Suicides by farmers, mainly because of indebtedness and crop loss due to vagaries of weather, did not abate.