India's farmers oppose corporate control

[delilah]

Does anyone on here have experience of farming in India ?
This article assumes some knowledge of their farming system, it would be great if someone could explain the issues a little. Anything of relevance to the UK or for us to learn from ?
TIA.

https://www.facebook.com/LandWorkersAlliance/posts/3520349708058694

 

[7610 super q]

I dunno. But I assume using front end weights is against their religion ?

Joking aside, a few near fatalities above.

 

[DrWazzock]

I agree with them. Down with that sort of thing. Whatever it is.

 

[Phil P]

Does anyone on here have experience of farming in India ?
This article assumes some knowledge of their farming system, it would be great if someone could explain the issues a little. Anything of relevance to the UK or for us to learn from ?
TIA.

https://www.facebook.com/LandWorkersAlliance/posts/3520349708058694

It’s a long read but this article has a bit of detail of what’s happening.

The undersold promise of Indian farm reforms

Market forces deserve a chance to help uplift India’s languishing agricultural sector.Yet, as their benefits will take some time to show up, clearer assurances could be made to protesters

www.google.co.uk

 

[delilah]

It’s a long read but this article has a bit of detail of what’s happening.

The undersold promise of Indian farm reforms

Market forces deserve a chance to help uplift India’s languishing agricultural sector.Yet, as their benefits will take some time to show up, clearer assurances could be made to protesters

www.google.co.uk

Thanks, that explains it more clearly than the original article.
My take on it: India's farmers are where we were a generation ago. Various checks and balances are in place to ensure farmers have some say in the marketplace. Govt wishes to remove those interventions in the name of efficiency. The farmers have no objection to the changes per se, rather they can see that left to its own devices the marketplace will end up in the hands of global corporations.

Seems to me that India's farmers are showing rather more prescience than we did. There is one stand-out line in that article:
If a cartel of buyers were to arise, sellers could appeal to India’s competition watchdog.

 

[Exfarmer]

I would be very aware of any such news out of India. For a start it is a mass of different states which have some extremely different laws to each other. Some are communist and some are very right wing. President Modi could teach Donald Trump populism and ludicrous quotes, one of which recently was the promotion that drinking cows urine will cure Covid.
The basic Indian farmer produces little to sell to anyone, first and foremost he wants to feed his family and he needs planty of children to look after him when he is worn out , by the time the oldest child is big enough to take over.
This leaves a vast number of dissaffected young who end up in the city slums.
These people who nearly all can read and write, but that is it, are very easy to lead into any populist gathering, but they are also mainly pacifist and rarely get worked up big time

 

[Gerbert]

Thanks, that explains it more clearly than the original article.
My take on it: India's farmers are where we were a generation ago. Various checks and balances are in place to ensure farmers have some say in the marketplace. Govt wishes to remove those interventions in the name of efficiency. The farmers have no objection to the changes per se, rather they can see that left to its own devices the marketplace will end up in the hands of global corporations.

Seems to me that India's farmers are showing rather more prescience than we did. There is one stand-out line in that article:
If a cartel of buyers were to arise, sellers could appeal to India’s competition watchdog.

It seems to me that they want to end the minimum prices for various crops (correct me if I'm wrong) which seems a sensible idea. Minimum prices are distorting to a market. Price is not simply a number, it's information, and by mandating a certain price you distort information.

 

[delilah]

It seems to me that they want to end the minimum prices for various crops (correct me if I'm wrong) which seems a sensible idea. Minimum prices are distorting to a market. Price is not simply a number, it's information, and by mandating a certain price you distort information.

Yes that is my reading of it - and wouldn't disagree with what you say - but that is only part of the story.
If the farmers are seeing beyond the freeing up of the market, and recognizing that, ultimately, uncontrolled competition leads to a monopoly, are they right to be making their case sooner rather than too late ?

The basic Indian farmer produces little to sell to anyone,

That must be only part true ? Who is feeding the urban millions ?

 

[Lowland1]

I would be very aware of any such news out of India. For a start it is a mass of different states which have some extremely different laws to each other. Some are communist and some are very right wing. President Modi could teach Donald Trump populism and ludicrous quotes, one of which recently was the promotion that drinking cows urine will cure Covid.
The basic Indian farmer produces little to sell to anyone, first and foremost he wants to feed his family and he needs planty of children to look after him when he is worn out , by the time the oldest child is big enough to take over.
This leaves a vast number of dissaffected young who end up in the city slums.
These people who nearly all can read and write, but that is it, are very easy to lead into any populist gathering, but they are also mainly pacifist and rarely get worked up big time

Thats a bit simplistic and a bit racist. However some of it does have a bit of truth behind it. The Indian government has promoted agriculture with grants and loans. For example the Government will pay for boreholes to be dug for irrigation and for most electricity is free for agriculture. Grants and loans are available for mechanization but for all of this there are still problems with regard to farm size and tenure. The Government wants to reduce the number of farms but the main aim of the Government is to free up the market it has been buying rice and wheat from the farmers which has led to overproduction and depletion of groundwater. It is now looking to have a free less regulated market and farmers are worried that they will be at the mercy of the free market. As for Indians not getting worked up and being pacifist you couldn’t be more wrong religious fighting or riots happens on a regular basis and usually ends up with people dead. With regard to Cows urine there are lots of remedies associated with it and whilst it seems ridiculous to us their seems to be some benefits to there homeopathic medicines although I doubt it would cure Covid.

 

[delilah]

https://www.facebook.com/LandWorkersAlliance/posts/3615968831830114

 

[Bruce Almighty]

We put a banner up on a trailer in support of India’s farmers, next to the M40
An Indian cricket club friend of mine asked for help
It went viral on Punjabi tv

 

[delilah]

We put a banner up on a trailer in support of India’s farmers, next to the M40
An Indian cricket club friend of mine asked for help
It went viral on Punjabi tv

Has he said much about the protests ? Are there any parallels with UK ag ? Or is Indian agriculture and society so different from ours that comparison is difficult ?

 

[Bruce Almighty]

Has he said much about the protests ? Are there any parallels with UK ag ? Or is Indian agriculture and society so different from ours that comparison is difficult ?

The government are trying to bring in "Contract Farming" - completely different to our contract farming

It was explained to me like this

It means the farmers have contracts with large companies, in the contract -
If the price drops the company doesn't have to buy the product
If the price rises the company still gets it at the contracted price
The straw from rice has traditionally been burned, this is to be banned & anyone breaking the law gets a massive fine and/ or imprisonment

They have my sympathy & I was happy to help with something that took me very little effort
There is a large Sikh community near here, most of which are originally from farming families

I've been promised free take always !

 

[delilah]

https://www.facebook.com/LandWorkersAlliance/photos/a.635714083188952/3628558523904478

 

[JohnGalway]

I read somewhere one of the farmers problems is storage, they have none, so if after harvest the price isn't favourable they are forced to sell. Obvious where that road leads for them.

 

[steveR]

I would be very aware of any such news out of India. For a start it is a mass of different states which have some extremely different laws to each other.

This, but on steroids. It is a vast country, and difficult to comprehend until you have been there. The range and quality of farms and farming varies hugely, but is usually the land and climate that dictates cropping.. same the world over!

I went there in the 80s, mainly S India as the latest set of agrarian reforms were taking effect and visited several farms, some larger than others, but all looked at me in amazement when I said we were farming 300 odd acres. The local coffee planters welcomed me as a fellow "Landowner", the farmers welcomed me as a grower.

Few of the peasant famers owned land and were beholden to Landlords and from chatting with a few of the local newsagent and off licence owners locally (all farming stock) it hasn't changed much!

 

[delilah]

https://www.facebook.com/LandWorkersAlliance/posts/3669801619780168

 

[delilah]

https://www.facebook.com/LandWorkersAlliance/posts/3677058385721158

 

[steveR]

I went there in the 80s, mainly S India as the latest set of agrarian reforms were taking effect and visited several farms, some larger than others, but all looked at me in amazement when I said we were farming 300 odd acres. The local coffee planters welcomed me as a fellow "Landowner", the farmers welcomed me as a grower.

Few of the peasant famers owned land and were beholden to Landlords and from chatting with a few of the local newsagent and off licence owners locally (all from farming stock) it hasn't changed much!

I also have a standing invite from the local shopkeepers, to go and visit their families in India, mostly Punjabi I think. I would love to go back, but I would be on my own, as Herself flatly refuse to come!

I have long had a hankering to ride into the Himalayas, and was invited by a couple of old chums 2 yrs ago, but as it happens Covid would have knocked that one on the head! Would be wonderful, combined with a farming visit or 3.... Or as the Accountant can put it, a "fact finding and research" trip!!

 

[delilah]

Ref RT, and to paraphrase Crocodile Dundee: "That's not a protest, this is a protest".

https://www.facebook.com/LandWorkersAlliance/posts/3697944120299251