The Silent Struggles of The Average Farmer
By: Backyard Farmers
Tags: India, Food Waste, Farmers, Agriculture, Farming

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If you asked me a few months ago, about the problems faced by farmers, I would shamelessly stare at you not intending to give you an answer. But recent events have lead me to educate myself on these matters.

A lot of you may be aware of the problems faced by farmers around the world, but I can swear that a good bunch of you are as unaware as I was. I am not the best at writing long introductions and I think my English teacher would agree so let’s get straight to the point.

India’s small operational land holdings has restricted farmers to produce enough yield to feed their family, let alone sell it to the market. Any crops that are remaining, are too less to profit from. This has been ignored by the government, and has thereby lead the farmers to suffer.

Food loss is another reason they are not able to produce enough crops. Indian farmers see more than Inr 92,000 crores worth of food loss a year. Ridiculously enough, it is estimated that it would take about Inr 89,000 Crores to eliminate this problem. Crazy, isn’t it?

Factors leading to food loss include:

You shouldn’t be too surprised that lack of proper farming equipment is on the list and the problem itself is pretty self explanatory. If farmers were to be educated on how to use modern equipment, it can significantly benefit their yield. This problem is seen in multiple LEDCs and a few NICs.

Factors concerning irrigation include:

The unreliability of water supply

Poor irrigation efficiency

Increasing demand of water

Inappropriate use of fertilizers (too much) can mess with the health of soil, producing little yield, that too of worse quality. Unfortunately, many farmers remain in the dark as to how much should be added to produce maximum yield of optimum quality.

The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020, allows farmers to sell their crops outside the APMC market. However, APMC makes sure that farmers get there MSP (Minimum support price), and if they were to sell outside the APMC market, they may not be able to earn the amount their crops are actually worth. This, and the other two very controversial bills passed by the government have lead to multiple protests.

The various schemes put into place by the government doesn’t seem to have much of an effect. So what can the Indian government do to help their farmers?

Taking reference to South Korea and Taiwan, who provide their farmers with multiple subsidy programs, aiding them in their work, significantly ease the lives of their farmers.

If something like this were to be implemented in India, it would definitely help at least a chunk of the 1.4 million farmers in this country.

what is to be done is ultimately in the government’s hands, so what can we do?

For starters, make sure you don’t waste any of that food. Yessssss! even if it is that tiniest crumb of bread or a spoon of rice. By doing this, we ensure that their efforts aren’t in vain, and as a bonus, we help save the environment.

Another thing you could do is support NGOs (such as Haritika, Dream Alive etc…) that empower farmers to grow their business. By doing this, you too are empowering farmers. At the very least, you can have a good night sleep knowing that you helped someone.

That is it from me (us actually), hope you’ve learned something useful. If not that, then we hope you enjoyed reading. Stay safe :)