Opinion - Letters to the Editor   

Farmers' woes

The article `Agriculture cannot wait' (May 24) has highlighted the need for reducing the gap between what the rural producer gets and what the urban consumer pays.

Providing loans will not help the farmer unless he gets decent returns for his labour. In the Coimbatore region, the prices of vegetables such as tomato vary from Rs.20 a basket to Rs.200 a basket. There is no processing industry worth the name and the produce is often allowed to rot. The only way to motivate the farmer to produce more is by creating a mechanism by which he can get adequate returns for his efforts.

Mison Mathew,
Coimbatore

Since Independence, we have had various plans and measures for promoting the agricultural sector. However, these have only increased agricultural production.

They have done nothing to improve the condition of farmers. The plan proposed by M.S. Swaminathan could help mitigate the agrarian crisis.

K. Damodaran,
Chidambaram, T.N.

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