There has been a drastic decline in the number of cultivators while there has been a corresponding increase in the number of agricultural labourers. The marginal and displaced farmers and farm workers are thus being denied their fundamental right to food and livelihood guaranteed by the Indian Constitution. The government has already announced the privatisation of grain procurement. Food distribution will therefore be driven by profits and not by peoples rights to food and livelihood. Our Demands Farmers are the best agricultural scientists especially for their own farm.
Scientist make their best contributions when the support farmers and build the farmers knowledge.
Science should be developed for the people and not vice-versa. Further science developed over the years by the farmers need to be honoured. The science that need to be developed should be aimed at more efficient resource use and not on farmers displacement. This resource depleting and livelihood-destroying paradigm of technology will and is resulting in mass unemployment, growing poverty and hunger. The present Agriculture Policy, which is aimed at corporate takeover of Indian agriculture, reversing of land reforms and introduction of hazardous technologies like GMOs, must be scrapped, and must be replaced with a small and marginal farmer-centred agricultural policy.