Pro-farmer, in parts

The government, for reasons best known to it, has opted for a low-key release of the country's first-ever national policy on farmers. This policy has been keenly awaited ever since the National Commission on Farmers (NCF), headed by noted agriculture expert M S Swaminathan, came out with a draft over a year ago. Though Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar maintains that it is based largely on the NCF recommendations, it actually seems to have disregarded several of the important suggestions mooted by the commission. The most significant among them are the counsel that the minimum support price (MSP) should be at least 50 per cent higher than the weighted average cost of production of a crop and that the actual procurement should be at the prices the private trade is willing to pay (read ruling market prices) to the farmers. Also, the policy overlooks the NCF's proposition that agriculture should be included in the Concurrent List under Article 246 of the Constitution to bring it directly under the control of the Centre.

Indeed, while the difficulties in transferring agriculture to the Centre can be understood as the states would just not agree to giving up control over such a key sector, the proposal of making a distinction between MSP and procurement price needed to be considered. For, this seems the only way the government can mop up adequate stocks to feed the public distribution system and also keep the farmers contented. The shortfall in the procurement of wheat in the past couple of years and paddy this year bears out the need for switching over to such an arrangement.

These aberrations apart, the official policy text does manage to bring the farmer, rather than agriculture, into sharp focus as desired by the NCF. The best proof of this is the incorporation in the policy of the NCF's proposition to measure agricultural progress by advances made in the farmers' income rather than the quantitative increase in output. Also significant is the broadening of the definition of farmers to include farm labourers, sharecroppers, tenants, poultry and livestock keepers, fishermen, beekeepers and even those involved in forest produce collection. Equally noteworthy is the pro-farmer stand taken in the policy on the controversial issue of land acquisition.

The policy minces no words in calling for a review of the Land Acquisition Act with particular reference to the assessment of compensation and goes on to say that only lands with low biological potential, such as uncultivable land or that affected by salinity, should be earmarked for non-agricultural purposes such as industries and construction activities. Taking the pro-farmer stance forward, the policy moots a national social security scheme to take care of the farmers' livelihood, illness and old age concerns.

Significantly, like other policy statements of this nature, this one too is replete with rhetoric. In this category falls the policy's stipulation of creating a single national market for agricultural produce by removing all restrictions, controls and regulations hindering increase in farmers' income. Though such a move is urgently needed, the government's recent actions do not inspire much confidence in its willingness to carry this out. Many of the curbs on trading of key agricultural commodities, which were removed earlier, have now been brought back, indicating scanty regard for its own policy document.