I'm a farmer too...

Today, I want to talk about the farmer's protest that is going on for the last few days in Delhi which is getting intense day by day.

Being the son of a farmer I have seen my father taking his produce from one City to another. one mandi to another Mandi. I have seen that pain and frustration of not being given the fair price of his blood and sweat.

I totally agree with protesting farmers.?I agree that once the new law is implemented big companies will rule and the farmer (85% of farmers in India are small farmers who own less than 1 acre of land) will not have negotiation power in absence of MSP (Minimum Support Price).

?I want to say this even if the government takes back the new law but the individual farmer's economic situation will not change it will remain as it is.?

The Problem is an individual farmer is weak when he is alone. He needs to understand the power of organisation. When you are organised then you have power.

I'll give you an example. Suppose an individual farmer produce 100 quintals of rice and takes it to a company or middleman he will not negotiate with them. That middleman knows that this farmer will not take his produce back to the village because he needs money and he doesn't have a storage facility. It's all a Psychological game.

Now imagine every village in our country has adopted group farming and has set up FPC (farmer producers company). Every farmer is one of the owners of that company. Each farmer produces 100 quintals and supposes there are a thousand farmers in that village. Now collectively they have produced 1 Lakh quintal. which is huge.

Now collectively farmers have negotiating power. right? they can sell it to whomever they want or store it in their warehouse(Individual farmers cannot build warehouse). they can sell it when the price is high. There are many possibilities.

Other benefits of group farming are fertilizer and seed costs would be less because they can negotiate with fertilizer companies, seed companies or even farm equipment companies for tractors and other types of equipment.

I would like to say this to the farmer's leaders. Those who are protesting cant see the big picture. I want to request them that they should look into this because they have influence over the farmers.?They should put this thing in practice in their villages because this is very very very important otherwise nothing is going to change. Jai Bharat.?