Naidu Woos Farmers With Sops During State Tour

Alarmed by the sprouting of seeds of discontent within the Andhra Pradesh rural community, Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu has embarked on a whirlwind tour of the state. This fortnight, Naidu will address a series of farmers conventions, covering every district in the state.

The programme officially purports to promote adoption of measures to increase yields and income. Naidu will also urge the farmers to become more market-friendly, citing the examples of their counterparts in Israel and Malaysia.

However, political circles maintain that the programme has been drawn up to weed out the growing hostility of farmers towards the reigning Telugu Desam government. The party has been rudely shaken by the recent farmers agitation against the hike in power tariff for the farm sector and inadequate power supply. The glut in paddy due to non-lifting of stocks by the Food Corporation of India and the rice millers also added to the farmers disenchantment with the ruling party.

 

The last straw for the farmers came in the form of a crash in crop prices. A couple of farmers who were unable to repay their loans commited suicide, sending shock waves through the state. In the charged scenario, the state governments directive to the apex marketing cooperative to enter the market appeared a classic case of too little, too late.

Subsequently, out of a determination to set things right grew the concept of the Karshak Sadassu, ie the conventions, which commenced on June 10 at Rajahmundry, the heartland of Andhras rice bowl.

During the course of the exercise, slated to continue till June 25 with a four-day break between June 15 and 18, the Chief Minister is to address two districts a day. Collectors of the concerned districts have been instructed by the government to identify 25 to 30 progressive farmers in each village and send them to the convention venue free of cost.

As many as 30,000 farmers are raked in each district totalling some 60,000 farmers a day who are addressed by Naidu to attend the convention where food is provided free at the governments expense.

In what is rapidly growing to be a sop a day story, Naidu makes it a point to announce, at each of these conventions, some concession for the farming community.

At Rajahmundry, on the first day, Naidu announced the removal of curbs on inter-state movement of paddy and rice and a 90 per cent cut in export duty on rice. The sop comes as a big boon for the farmers, especially in the two Godavari districts where the Ford Foundation has demonstrated the possibility of raising even three paddy crops a year.

Exhorting farmers to take to oil palm cultivation, the Chief Minister promised sops to industries coming forward to set up processing plants in the area for oil palm.

At Nizamabad the following day, Naidu announced total exemption of taxes on agricultural machinery and implements, barring tractors, as a sop to the farmers to take to mechanisation of operations. Thereafter it fell to the lot of the beedi workers to pampered at Adilabad, where the Chief Minister announced that he would soon make a levy on mini cigarettes to mobilise funds to improve their living conditions.

Official circles are playing down the political ramifications of these conventions, maintaining that the programme has been chalked out out of real concern for the seventy per cent population that is dependant on agriculture but contributes only thirty per cent to the states GDP.

Emphasising the need to educate farmers, a senior official told Business Standard that it was essential to limit areas under certain cash crops like chilly and cotton so that excess production does not result in the lowering of market prices. Besides this, he said the conventions aimed to educate farmers on six subjects that have been identified by government. These being:

Present cropping scenario in the district, state, the country and on the international front, and the need to regulate production to avoid a glut of any crop, particularly of cash crops.

lEfficient use of inputs seeds, fertilisers, pesticides and credit, and avoidance of indiscriminate use of pesticides in produce that is to be exported.

Water users associations, their role in efficient use of available water for maximising agricultural production and personal income of the farmers.

Watershed management, forest protection, drip and sprinkler irrigation etc., to optimise use of water to improve yield and farmers income.

Pre and post harvest management of crop, harvesting techniques, utilisation of cold storage etc.

Importance of mechanisation in crop production, and availability of the latest machinery to reduce the drudgery for farmers.