BY HH Mohrmen
Saying that farmers are the backbone of the economy of the country is now the empty rhetoric that our leaders love to shout at the top of their lungs during elections. There are also those who say that since the majority of people living in the villages are farmers, therefore they lazily conclude that more than seventy percent of the country’s population are famers. These statements are common and one would hope that the government takes good care of this huge section of the population. Alas! In reality the opposite happens. The government may have tried to do more for the welfare and the betterment of the farming community, but it is not enough; still much more needs to be done because what trickles down to the farmer is a pittance.
Recently farmers in Jaintia hills had to sell their tomatoes for a song; some for as low as two or three rupees per kilogram. And there are those who feel insulted to sell their products at such throwaway prices that they decided to dump the tomatoes at the nearest dump yard instead. We also have many stories of farmers who on hearing about the fall in the price of tomatoes in the market simply left the tomatoes to rot in the fields. The government has been talking about minimum support price for the farmers on each of their products but the reality is that the farmers are still at the mercy of the traders.
However, it is not just the tomato farmers who are face this problem but ginger growers, broomstick and even turmeric growers face the same problem of marketing their products. In reality of all the farm products grown in the area it is only rice which has no problems with marketing. Last year we had many farmers under the Thadlaskein Block who reported that they have to replant all their harvest because the price of ginger was very low and even the famous turmeric farmers find difficulty in marketing the produce. Like any other produce the price of broomstick is again decided by the traders.
Then there is the issue of traders deducting several kilograms of their products when they sell them at the wholesale markets like Ïewduh. In fact this is not only a practice peculiar to Ïewduh but it happens everywhere where farmers sell their products in bulk. The farmers have been at the receiving end from all direction.
It is also true that the collection centres which were supported by the Horticulture Department have helped the farmers in collectivising their products and we have seen this idea replicating elsewhere even without the support of the department, but the crux of the matter is how do we link them to the market and how do we help famers take control of the situation?
Not only agricultural products face this problem but it has also come to light that even poultry farmers are beginning to feel the pinch once they start increasing production. In a meeting held on August 14 convened by NABARD, DRDA and Basin at DC’s office Jowai, a poultry farmer who said that she reared two thousand chicks per batch also reported that she and other poultry farmers are having problems in marketing the chicken because of the huge imports from outside the state. We were informed by another farmer who is also engaged in trading of chicken that Jowai market alone consumes not less than four tons of chicken per day and he insisted that local producers will not be able to meet the market demand, so we are in a situations where we are damned if we enhance production and damned if we don’t.
Though some of our farmers are into commercial farming and produce tomatoes, ginger, turmeric and broomstick in large quantities but a large part of the farming community are still engaged in subsistence farming. The primary objective of most of the farmers is to plant for their own consumption. They only sell the surplus in the market. This is the mindset which is still prevailing amongst the farmers in the area.
The reason that farmers are constantly at the receiving end of the stick is because unlike those who are in other businesses they are not an organised lot. It may be mentioned that those who engaged in other sectors like transport be it taxi, buses, hawkers or even those who are in coal business have been able to organise themselves. They have associations or organisations to represent them but the farmers are yet to come under one umbrella to voice their concerns.
Then those who look at credit access as an indication of economic progress would be disheartened because they would like to see our farmers take loans from the bank to increase production. On the other hand a farmer not taking loan is a blessing in disguise for themselves. Farmers’ reluctant to take loan is what has prevented farmers’ suicides’ in the state! In spite of repeated advice from government and non-government agencies to avail credit to increase their production; most farmers refuse to do so. On many occasion we conclude that farmers do not take loans because it is just not in our culture to do so but now we realise that they are smarter than us because they would have fall into a debt trap had they taken loan.
It is obvious now that the major issue here is market linkages and how to counter market fluctuations. The government could either find ways and means to control the price which is next to impossible or to create infrastructure like cold storage so that farmers can store their perishable goods so that they are not compelled to get into distress sale but can wait for the a better price to sell their products. The other option is to encourage entrepreneurial development in food processing; this will help reduce the stress on the farmers on how to market their produce. It is also another viable alternative for job creation amongst the educated unemployed youths.
The other problem is that last year the Government of Meghalaya went gung-ho in launching the state organic mission but where are we now? The farmers continue to use pesticides and chemical fertilizers with gusto and people who produce organic vegetables find no place to sell their products. Ultimately they have no other alternative but to sell their niche products together with non-organic produce and all their efforts went down the drain. The Government has done precious little apart from launching the mission and the obvious reason is that the state is not serious in its organic mission.
Meghalaya is also caught in an amusing situation where there is a flourishing trade of smuggling cows and oxen to Bangladesh. With the kind of terrain we have in the border; the same will be difficult to stop. And the government is not making an effort to legalise the trade which can be a major help to boost the economy of the locals. It is also true that the National Live Stock Mission concentrates only on diary development but not on fattening of cattle which is an age old practice in the state. The State Government should therefore come up with its own cattle breeding and fattening mission because there is a huge market inside and across the border too.
There are reports in the media on a regular basis about how much cows have been confiscated by our border security forces from the different border outposts in the state, But the very fact that exporters continues to illegally transport cattle across the border in spite of all odds is because it is a flourishing business. Meghalaya should therefore move the Central Government to allow export of cows to Bangladesh. We all know how huge the market is. On the premise that fattening of cows has been an age old tradition of the people in the state, the government should pursue the matter with the central government to allow export of cows from the state to the neighbouring country.
There has been so much talk about improving trade relationships with the neighbouring countries but Meghalaya has not capitalised on that. Perhaps the state government should not only try to impress on the central government to allow export of live cattle to the country, but it will be able to create more employment in the state if it encourages meat processing wherever it is feasible.
It is high time that we stop looking at the farmers as target of our programmes and subsidies. We should instead see them as equal partners in improving the economy of the state.