FOR a number of years now, small farmers from Punjab have been descending upon Lahore and protesting in the streets to draw attention to the plight of the agriculture sector. Every year the government starts by responding with force, then negotiates with them to clear the streets. This year too, according to representatives of the movement, some 3,000 of them have been picked up by police, while their comrades carry on their protest on Lahore’s major roads. This is a peaceful movement which consists of small farmers, those who are most vulnerable to the vagaries of this sector. Small farmers are hemmed in by the power of the big landlord, the patwari, the moneylender or middle man and the power of the state machinery that controls procurement and has some control over distribution of vital inputs. They are most vulnerable to the vagaries of weather and calamities such as floods, as well as wild swings in the price of their commodity. For more than three years now, they have endured floods, drought, pest attacks and steeply falling commodity prices, to the point where many are getting pushed into penury.
The sad part of the episode is that neither the government nor the opposition parties that are in Lahore in a theatrical show of solidarity can really help them. The government lacks the will and the resources, while the opposition parties are only there for show. The agriculture sector, which is one of the largest employers of the country’s unskilled labour force, is far too permeated by informality. Banks are shy to lend to this sector, subsidy mechanisms end up benefiting the big landowner or the fertiliser manufacturers more than the small farmer, and endless power subsidies for tube wells as well as support prices for major crops beyond wheat require far more resources than are available to the state. Until the state can give the agriculture sector its fair share of attention through reforms that formalise much of the activity here, it will be next to impossible to devise the kinds of interventions that these farmers need. Getting proper targeting of subsidies and allocation of formal credit for small farmers requires greater documentation of their cash flows. The opposition’s politics and palliative announcements such as last year’s Kissan Package will not do much. The voice of the small farmer needs to be heard with far more seriousness than is currently the case.
Published in Dawn, September 30th, 2016
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