The Hindu : National : When language came in the way

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Apr 10, 2005

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National

When language came in the way

By Gargi Parsai

NEW DELHI, APRIL 9. The `Agriculture Summit-2005' inaugurated by the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, here today disappointed a few farmers of the Kisan Club from Jind in Haryana.

Even though they were in the progressive farmers' category, they said they did not understand the proceedings of the hour-long function in English. "The function should have been in Hindi [in parts]. We should have been allowed to ask some questions or one of our representatives should have been given the floor so that the Prime Minister and the bureaucrats could know first-hand what our problems are," Kuldip Singh Dhanda of Sunderpur village in Jind district told The Hindu here.

He said he had diverted part of his 20-acre land to growing `jatropa' (bio-fuel) and organic farming of wheat. He was trying to seek information on that but the officers were too busy to give him time.

On exports, he said that the Agriculture Produce Exports and Development Agency (APEDA) had too many regulations and the registration fees were too high. So, he preferred the local market. But even in the local market, there were no buyers for organic products which were twice as costly as the regular wheat and half in yield per acre. There was also no facility for certification of the organic produce.

"Crop insurance, a failure"

Rohtas Singh and Dalbir Singh, also from Jind district, said they had not heard of the proposed Seed Bill, the Integrated Food Bill or even the Patents Bill. For them, the crop insurance scheme has failed because the block was taken as a unit. "We want to take advantage of the subsidy under horticulture but we know that we will have to run between Jind and Chandigarh several times and grease many palms before our subsidy would get sanctioned. The same is true of [a] loan. In Kisan Credit Cards, they mortgage our entire land for a meagre loan extended at 11.5 per cent interest."

According to Jagat Singh of Lochan village in Haryana, farmers were falling deep into a debt trap because they did not get a reasonable price for their produce. He gave the example of mustard this year. He said that in 1960 his family consisting of five brothers had a 90-acre farm. "Then my father was not under any debt burden and farming was viable. Today, we have a debt of Rs. 25 lakhs and this year we have to get my daughter married for which we would require more loan. How do we survive? This Summit gave us no answers. We were not even heard."

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