Over the past one year, while lakhs of farmers are being driven to suicide, one of the things that is giving sleepless nights to the working people of our land is the skyrocketing prices, particularly of food. Food prices have been rising steadily for last many years. This year has seen much less rainfall than normal due to which there is drought in large parts of Maharashtra. Drought is not responsible for the rapid rise that has already taken place: prices of many food items rose very sharply in 2007 and early 2008 even though there was good monsoon during those years. The effect of the drought of this year will be faced in the future, when the crops come in, when the situation will become even more worse.
The problem has arisen because over the years, successive governments both at the centre as well as state levels, have promoted the interests of big corporations, both Indian and foreign at the cost of farmers. We are today facing the consequences of this policy. They have sacrificed the interests of the working people of both city and countryside to promote private profit.
The liberalisation and privatisation policy over the past 20 years has been to open up food trading to the biggest private profiteers and speculators in the country and the world.
oarding and “black marketeering” has acquired respectability, as a legitimate business. Large corporates, engaged in retail trade, like Reliance retail, routinely buy up and stock physical stocks of such commodities and jack up the prices in the market. The government has allowed food prices to become a plaything of international and Indian trading giants who create artificial shortages, who control import and export prices, and who influence government policies. These trading giants set the prices and the trajectory of food prices through commodity exchanges and futures trading. For these trading giants, like Cargill of USA or Reliance Retail, I.T.C., Unilever or Adani of India, foods are not a necessity of life but just another commodity for trading and making profit. These companies control import, export and commodity markets for food. The wholesale market of each major food item in the country is also controlled by just a few dozen traders. They, with the connivance of the government and the bureaucracy, indulge in extensive hoarding, creation of artificial shortage and black marketing to jack up prices. The state government catches just a few small traders, hoarding a few throusand kilos, from time to time, to show to people that it is taking strong action against hoarders.
The export-import policies of the government are also geared to guaranteeing super-profits for the big trading corporations. Take the example of dal, which is the main source of protein for large number of people of the country. Despite the acute shortfall in dal production for many consecutive years, the Indian government continued to encourage exports of dals from the country till after 2005-06. When the country is facing acute shortage of sugar and sugar is being imported, the ban on export has been lifted. Sugar mills, controlled by a few large companies and a number of political leaders, including the Agriculture Minister of the Central Government, are ensuring that the shortage prevails so that they can make windfall profits
Farmers have no assurance about price of their produce. Prices of agriculture inputs are controlled by big capitalists. Productivity of farms is not rising but cost of producing is. The farmer is squeezed from all sides and is subjected to huge risks of falling prices of produce, rising costs of inputs and weather. An average farmer household manages to earn just around one thousand rupees per month out of cultivation of his farm! Maharashtra government does not care for small farmers and farmers of droughtaffected regions. Only 17.5 percent farm land is irrigated in Maharashtra as against national average of 44.3 percent of irrigated land.
The government has promoted cash crops and capitalist farming as a matter of policy. This has increased the gap between the rich who produce for profit in the market and the poor, who produce mainly for survival, in the countryside. There has been no concerted policy effort on the part of the government to enhance the annual supply of food commensurate with the increasing population and its needs. Even after 60 years of independence, bulk of the peasants have to depend on monsoon. The very little that is spent to create infrastructure to support agriculture is all cornered by the rich farmers.
It is the government’s primary responsibility to arrange food out of its stocks for people in case of shortfall in its production, but it is not doing it.
The government’s connivance with traders in creating artificial shortage and high prices is evident from the fact that 1.74 lakh tonnes of dals imported by PSUs, like STC, MMTC, NAFED, etc., are currently lying at major ports and rotting. Similarly, wheat enough to feed 15 lakh families throughout the year, or the weight of the entire wheat produced every year in Australia, is lying in the open in Punjab and rotting.
The government has allowed futures trading in agricultural commodities. This is a form of speculation, through trade in food stocks that are yet to come to the market. This has had a tremendous impact on food prices.
Successive governments, working for the big capitalists, have more or less destroyed the Public Distribution System in Maharashtra and in all but a handful of states during the last 15 years. They have distributed ration cards of different colours and in the process denied the benefit of ration supply to a large number of people since 1997. People have neen deliberately divided into different coulour ration card holders and made to fight with each other.
With the elections to the Vidhan Sabha in Maharashtra due next month, the government has tried to grab votes by declaring that even APL families will get 5 items of food at subsidized prices. We, the people, are wise enough to know the worth of these empty promises. We have no faith in the anti-people parties who have ruled us for more than sixty years!
Friends and comrades,
The Right to Food must be universal, unconditional and justiciable. The state must guarantee nothing less than availability of all essential food of good quality and in adequate quantity to all citizens at affordable prices. It must punish any official or private party that seeks to violate this Right to Food. The only way to ensure this is for our people is to work towards establishing the genuine rule of the people. To this end, we have to unite across region, religion, caste and party affiliations and fight for the following strategic as well as immediate demands:
Let us raise these demands together. Our representatives cannot or will not ensure this, we have to pull them down! / they have no right to continue!
Disclaimer: The opinions presented on this website's event and discussion forums are those of readers from around the world and do not necessarily represent the views of CGPI, its members or any affiliated organisations.
Home | About | Statements & Speeches | Documents | People's Voice | Donate | Act Now! | Download
Search powered by