KURNOOL: India is in the throes of a serious agrarian crisis which needs to be addressed before things go out of hand, MP and president of All-India Kisan Sabha C.K. Chandrappan has said.

Addressing a meeting after inaugurating the 15th conference of Andhra Pradesh Rythu Sangham here on Monday, he said everybody was worried about the frightening situation of the agriculture sector, which manifested into "suicides among farmers".

Mr. Chandrappan said Andhra Pradesh was the worst hit in the country with highest number of deaths, followed by Kerala. Now, everybody realised that agriculture was the biggest economic sector in the country, which provided largest employment, raw material to the industries, food security to masses and commodities for export.

While over 70 per cent of the population found livelihood in agriculture, the budget allocation was only two per cent. Mr. Chandrappan said India could never fulfil its dream of becoming an economic power in the world without success in agriculture.

Growth rate

Even Prime Minister Manmohan Singh placed it on record that an agriculture growth rate of four per cent was essential to achieve overall growth rate of eight per cent.

Mr. Chandrappan was critical of the stand taken by the rich nations over agriculture subsidies saying that the US generously supported its farmers but was against the Governments doing the same in the developing countries. Also, the rich nations were against construction of larger irrigation projects, as they considered it a potential threat to their monopoly.

Unity sought

The AIKS president called upon farmers to unite under the banner of their common demands rather than unions and parties to pull the farming community out of the debt-trap. They should fight for reasonable subsidies, quality seed, easy loans and comprehensive crop insurance with village as a unit.

State president of the Sangham Kolli Nageswara Rao underscored the need for nipping in the bud the tendency of monopolising the seed industry by Monsanto, which collected a royalty of Rs. 1,250 on cotton seed valued at Rs. 450.

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