\u2018Lose land or lose lives\u2019
\n NEW DELHI
\nAs India witnessed an uptick in suicides by farmers in the last few years, farm leaders and agriculture experts demanded the government bring in new farm policies and take urgent steps to address the crisis.
\nOver 17,000 farmers have committed suicide over the past three years due to heavy debts and crop losses, according to figures presented in the Indian parliament earlier this year. According to a National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report, 5,579 farmers committed suicide in the country in 2020, compared to 5,957 the year before.
\nWhile 70% of people in the country depend upon agriculture directly or indirectly, the spate of suicides by farmers has been testing the nerves of successive governments.
\nRead more: Muslim innovator\u2019s magic hands help India\u2019s troubled farmers
\nOn the eve of World Farmers Day, which is observed on different days in different countries, India\u2019s top agriculture expert Devinder Sharma told Anadolu Agency that farmers are facing \u201cincome disparity.\u201d
\n\u201cIf you look at the agriculture sector, it is the only area where produce enters the market without a price tag, and then the market decides the price,\u201d he said. Sharma noted that whatever is happening in India with regard to farm suicides is \u201cuniversal in design.\u201d
\n\u201cThe reason why Indian farmers resort to suicides is that the design puts agriculture into the hand of a few companies,\u201d he said. \u201cThe farming population everywhere in the world is confronted with income disparity. Unless we are able to address that, I don\u2019t think we can fix up the food markets.\u201d
\n\u2018Serious agrarian distress\u2019
\nSharma said there is a need to make farming economically viable by providing farmers a guaranteed price for their produce.
\n\u201cIn India, Minimum Support Price (MSP) should be there. It may not be the right kind of price, but it provides assurance. The real freedom of farmers will come when we provide farmers with guaranteed prices,\u201d he said.
\nStating that the number of suicides in the country is a reflection of the \u201cserious agrarian distress in the country,\u201d Sharma said that in absence of proper income, suicides are bound to happen.
\n\u201cAt times, farmers take multiple loans. To bring farmers out of that situation, we have to give them a living income,\u201d he said.
\nEconomist Satish Verma of the Centre for Rural Research and Industrial Development, an autonomous research institute in northern India, said that since the income of farmers is \u201clow\u201d, they have to depend on both institutional and non-institutional sources for loans.
\n\u201cAs far as institutional sources, there have been announcements about the loan waiver, but the non-institutional sources which are mostly private don\u2019t provide any kind of waiver. As loans from non-institutional sources come with high interest rates, farmers are not able to repay their loans,\u201d he said.
\nHe said when farmers are not able to pay their loans, they are left with two options only \u2013 lose their land or lose their lives.
\n\u201cI believe that suicides are happening because of non-institutional loans. The government should control these loans. The non-institutional sources of loans have their own mechanism and they take possession of lands of farmers if they are not able to pay the loans,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u2018Lose land or lose lives\u2019 NEW DELHI As India witnessed an uptick in suicides by farmers in the last few years, farm leaders and agriculture experts demanded the government bring in new farm policies and take urgent steps to address the crisis. Over 17,000 farmers have committed suicide over the past three years due to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260480,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7255,7256],"class_list":{"0":"post-260477","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-hard-choices","9":"tag-indian-farmers"},"yoast_head":"\n