Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Crop pricing - Govt vs farmers


I had been to a seminar by Subhash Palekar on Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF). I will share more about it later. For now, I want to share something I am thinking about since last 12 hrs.

A builder sets the price of a house to sell.
A TV manufacturer sets price of the TV.
A car maker sets price of the car.
Fuel prices are decided by producers.
Air fare is decided by service provider.
Even land prices are decided by the current owner.

Why a farmer is not allowed to set price for the crop he/she produces?

Second question that pinched me hard:

We are ready to spend more and more money for movie tickets, food@restaurants, dresses@malls, cars, travel, doctors, teachers and everyone, except the farmer who takes lot of efforts to produce a healthy food risking the yield and going against so many hurdles by not using any of harmful pesticides/fertilizers/practices. If the farmer fails to sustain and quits farming, and worse, all farmers join the group and take up jobs that has better money, where will get our food from? I am really feeling scared to think about that day when no active farmers are there and farm lands are converted into commercial/residential ones.

I don't know what will be the solution at the end. But, I think it is definitely worth to think about it now and come up with suggestion/thoughts that may lead to some workable solution.

I have expressed by fear here. Hope I get some sleep now.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Wow, such a thoughtful write-up...

Prabhat said...

Thanks Rupali.