Dr Gandhi questions govt silence

Sunday, 13/12/2015

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PATIALA: Member of Parliament (MP) from Patiala Dr Dharamvira Gandhi raised the issue of the agrarian crisis in the country in the Lok Sabha on Saturday.

He pointed out that the number of farmers committing suicide increased every year and more than 3 lakh farmers were reported to have killed themselves in the past 20 years.

The data released by the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) also showed that a farmer commits suicide somewhere in the country every 46 minutes, he said.

VESTED INTEREST
He said that suicide by farmers is a reflection of the grave neglect of and apathy towards the agriculture sector and, at present, farming was in crisis not because it was not productive, but successive governments wanted to keep the farming sector in an impoverished state.

He also referred to some more studies stating that 58% farmers go to bed without eating any food during night.

Dr Gandhi said that governments the world over did not seem to be much bothered to raise the level of agriculture and farmers going by their policies.

He said that the Union government would have to stand firm at the 10th ministerial meeting at Nairobi and put forward its viewpoint at the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

He said that apprehensions had gained ground in the light of the fact that India had buckled in the Doha summit under the pressure of developed economies to accept Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) due to its food security concerns. He said that rich countries such as European Union, Canada and Australia, aggressively wanted to limit the provisions of the minimum support price (MSP) given to Indian farmers.

SUBSIDIES
He said that by treating MSP as farm subsidy, they had accused India of exceeding the 10% limit – called de-minimis level of subsidies – that was imposed way back in 1988.

The MP added that the subsidies were given primarily to keep the cost of production low so as to keep food prices low for consumers and, by withdrawing them, the cost of cultivation would increase, which would mean that food prices would skyrocket.

Dr Gandhi also raised the issue of special safeguard measures (SSM) granted to developing countries so as to minimise the harmful impacts of cheaper imports.

SSM actually means raising tariffs temporarily to deal with a flood of imports and price falls. The MP added that the formula was still to be worked out keeping the level of import surges and at what level of imports should the countries be allowed to raise import tariffs.

He said that the dice was, therefore, loaded against India which has a huge food security programme depending largely upon the massive food procurement from small farmers.

He added that in other words, the procurement of food, which the WTO wants dismantled, ensures livelihood security for millions of small and marginal farmers and India cannot ever think of placing the livelihood security of 600 millions farmers on the chopping block of the international trade.