Is Farming on the verge of death in India? What Farmers want & Solutions. Mumbai farmers protest

Farmers from all across the state of Maharashtra are protesting in Financial Capital Mumbai. More than 35,000 Farmers gathered including women & men from all age groups.

They walked 180 Km to Reach Mumbai in last 5 days. Below are their 5 Demands

In Rest of all the states across India, the situation is the same, most of the farmer association are protesting against the government.

Root Cause of Problem:

Learnings from my Agricultural Entrepreneurship experience (2012 -2016)

As my entrepreneurial journey, I left my corporate job in MNC back in 2012 & Started Green House Farming, Open Field Farming for 4 Years in Gujarat.

Green House Farming Project was subsidized project from State Government + Central Government. Where in the farmers will get 60% project subsidized & rest 40% farmers have to convert it into the loan. (Mortgage Loan - Project Loan with land backed security in PSU)

Total Cost of the project was 30 Lac Rupees wherein farmers got a subsidy of 20 Lac approx. Rest 10 Lac was their investment in the project of 1 Acre Green House Farming also called as Poly House which is Israel Technology used in India as on Today.

Approx 5000 Green House built from 2011 till 2015. Farmers used to grow cucumber, chilly, tomatoes, bottle guard, Bhindi & watermelon, muskmelon & Many more vegetables.

The real problem or we can call drawback of this whole project was Pricing. The government failed to create the market for the product. When farmers went to sell their produce in Agriculture Produce Market Committee - APMC they didn't get the fair price for their produce.

Just to understand the gap between Wholesale market & retail market. I was selling cucumber at price of 3 Rs per KG so for 20 KG i got 60 Rupees the same cucumber got sold in the retail market at the price of 15 Rs per KG to 20 RS per KG.

Now that's a difference of 500%. This is the exact root cause of the problem of farmers protesting across the nation. They are asking for Minimum Support Price - MSP which must be 150% of their production cost. It simply means if their own production cost is 10 Rupees per KG for their Product they are asking 15 Rupees per KG from Government as assured price.

Food Corporation of India - FCI, APMC (Agriculture Produce Market Committee) are present in most of the state which is government bodies who buy most of the produce of Farmers.

There is a higher level of corruption in this both entities, wherein they make nexus & buy produce from Farmers at very cheaper rates & sell at higher rates. Hoarding. Whatever we call it but it's killing the farmer more than anything.

More than 60% India's population still lives in the village and have an average income per person around 3500 Rs to 5000 Rs. I worked very closely with farmers in Gujarat to understand their situation. I stayed with them, I did open-field farming in 20-acre land with the latest technology. (drip irrigation, organic farming)

However, as my journey continue I was incurring big losses because I was not getting the right price for my produce. Most of the time I was selling my produce below my costing.

The experience of farming was a great learning, it surpassed all learning which I gathered from books because it was really learning. Results were visible. I truly enjoyed apart from incurring huge loses. Whatever i learned from the entrepreneurial journey is so significant. It's very hard to put it into words exactly.

True learning is that you are capable to learn something new which you thought were impossible. However, i did all contract farming because i had no land of my own.

To the current tricky situation, i firmly believe that there is only one way out. Which is assuring Minimum Support Price for every product which comes from Agriculture.

India is mismanaged country, wherein there is nothing call accountability. I don't blame government system for all that has happened. Its a lack of willingness to bring down the change to ground level.

Farmers are not exactly looking for loan-waiver because they know its temporary solution. But the long-term solution is MSP. They are asking for their right, not for mercy from the government. There is a huge difference between both of them.

Farming sector has been under various threats whether its drought, shortage of water for farming. Electricity problems. However, Indian farmers are yet producing highest grains & wheat around the world.

If India has to become superpower the way goes from Village. We need to empower the bottom line which is 60% of total population. They are looking for long-term solutions from government.

It's the political system, buerocracy, general perception of public towards farmer which are at stake. The common man of this country have huge respect for farmers & I can say it from my own experience.

To overcome the situation below are some solution to the situation of farmers.

Direct selling of produce (Farm fresh to End User)

Remove mediators - FCI , APMC

Remove all subsidy on agriculture projects instead provide MSP for produce

Empower Farmers with the right education, crop cycles, organic farming

Reduce costing of farmers, Create Seedbank across India

Adopt drip irrigation faster in states like Maharashtra & rest all states of India

Increase the base price of Milk, dairy products

Contract farming at larger scale wherein the farmers get the right price for their products along with the security of buying all produce

Do Scientific Farming + Conventional method of farming

Focus on Quality of Produce

Large-scale procurement via a public-private partnership

Promote local business agriculture on various maximum selling platforms. like Amazon, Flipkart, BigBasket

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Abhishek Shah

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