Farmers Movement Archive

Telangana farmers may not benefit from farm bills: Experts

HYDERABAD: Experts have raised concerns, especially for states like Telangana, about the new farm bills. A large number of small farmers, shift to paddy, poor literacy levels among the farming community to understand nitty-gritty of contract farming and getting minimum support price (MSP) for turmeric and maize may hit farmers in the state. The experts say the state has to be watchful about the new farm bills. While Telangana is becoming the rice bowl of India with one of the highest paddy production yields in the country, the liberal norms for more imports in the new bill is cause for concern. “Against World Trade Organisation (WTO) norms, developed nations like the US give more subsidies to farmers than India. Their produce will be available at cheaper rate. Over , a period, if there is no monitoring on imports, local farmers and produce will be under stress, but the bill has some path-breaking reforms too,” University of Hyderabad assistant professor Dr Ch Krishna Reddy said. Citing the example of turmeric farmers, who have been demanding MSP for years, Telangana Kisan cell vice-president K Anvesh Reddy said the new farm bills would not help in any way even if farmers were allowed to sell their produce anywhere. “Turmeric farmers from Nizamabad travel 500 kms to Sangli in Maharashtra to sell their produce, hoping for better price, but they don’t get it. Middlemen decide the price there too. The bills will only help the middlemen,” he said. Another concern for Telangana is that out of 3.49 lakh farmers, roughly 96%, own land less than seven acres. “This is a typical scenario in states like Telangana, where the percentage of small farmers is very high. The bills do not provide any involvement of state in contract farming agreements to be entered by companies with farmers, whose literacy levels are poor and who are not in a position to understand the legalities of the contract,” Ravi Kanneganti, state committee member of Rythu Swarja Vedika, said. Another major concern is maize crop as the farmers have not been getting MSP for the past few years. The farm bills might help parties to use the loopholes to buy produce at much cheaper price from the farmers. Though the state government had planned zero acres as part of the crop plan for rainy season, farmers went ahead and this season over two lakh acres went under this crop and approximately 6,000 quintals might be available in the market. The cost of cultivation is approximately Rs 2,251, but the central government has fixed Rs 1,512 per quintal, which is much lesser. Similar is the case with soyabean, sorghum and green gram produce.

The Times of India

2020-09-21

Hyderabad