Pitching for protecting and strengthening agriculture which was in doldrums, Karnataka Assembly Speaker Kagodu Thimmappa today said there should be a clearcut national policy to ensure remunerative price to farmers.
Thimmappa also rued lack of leadership at the national level to take up cudgels for the farmers and added, " a comprehensive struggle is needed to fight for their cause."
"The agriculture sector has to be strengthened. A national thinking is needed," he said, after releasing a documentary "When death strides the fields" brought out by two senior journalists.
Thimmappa said the agriculture sector which generates highest level of employment in the country was regrettably in a "helpless state" with farmers not getting scientific and fair price for their produce.
"There should be a system that ensures fair price to farmers but it is not easy," Thimmappa said.
Thimmappa also regretted that elected representatives were not debating enough on the plight of farmers.
Veteran journalist Sathyanarayana and Karnataka Media Academy Chairman M A Ponnappa were present.
With nearly 550 farmers taking their lives in the past six months in the state, the documentary, both in Kannada and English, brings the agrarian crisis into sharp focus.
The documentary film looks at the unabated farmers suicides, delving into a plethora of aspects, including market dynamics, state policy, cropping pattern and others with case studies of sugarcane growers and progressive farmers.
Interviews with experts, farmers, activists and thinkers form major part of the 28-minute documentary, which also highlights the Gandhian way and the need to promote organic farming to save the farmers from the agrarian crisis.
It is produced and directed by senior journalists Maya Jaideep and Kestur Vasuki, who travelled with a team of senior colleagues to the suicide-hit districts of Mandya, Tumakuru, Chitradurga, Davangere, Bagalakote, Belagavi, Ramanagara, Mysuru and Chamarajanagara.
The two journalists have to their credit other documentaries, including on illegal mining "Heat in Dust", on people's movement against the Chamalapura thermal plant near Myusuru "Death Knell to the Nilgiris Biosphere" and on Daroji bears "Please Bear With Us" to save the space for bears.
