In Karnataka, we revere the farmers by calling them as our “Annadaata” — the providers of food. And of late, our Annadaatas, the farmers, have been making foreign trips with the taxpayers’ money to learn how to become effective Annadaatas. It is reported that between 2009 - 2010, nearly 841 farmers from Karnataka were sent to China and around 200 farmers were sent to Israel.
Now the Karnataka government wants to be the first State in the nation to take its farmers to Cuba! And nearly a thousand of them! The government wants our farmers to be exposed to advanced techniques of organic food production adopted in that country. However, a farmer cannot go on the trip unless he has less than 5 acres of land and practices organic farming.
When it comes to addressing the farming issues, suddenly most politicians become farmers; so also our Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa who claims he is a farmer and wants his fellow farmers to get updated as he himself put it: “Going outside and learning always expands the horizons of your knowledge, their trip is going to help them and the way they do farming here.”
Many taxpayers would feel this business of government - sponsored trips for farmers to “learn and expand their horizons” is as futile as politicians going on the same kind of “expanding their horizon” tours. It fails the cost – versus - benefit test. It’s true that exposure helps to enhance our understanding but it must also enhance our productivity, which has not happened be it any kind of government study tour.
More importantly, while we appreciate the Chief Minister’s concern for the poor farmer and the environment, we would like to know why the State governments announce schemes such as these foreign trips, loan waiver, free 24 x 7 electricity, etc. just before an election. We wish the monsoon was as predictable as these vote - garnering ineffective schemes. In fact, our poor farmers know this cunning political weather so well that they know exactly when to take a loan as they know exactly when the government is going to waive it. So is the government really looking to educate the farmers and increase the crop yield in the State or making sure its party’s yield in the election is robust?
But one group who are going to have a robust year are the tour operators. It is a known fact most travel agencies that handle government orders operate on a kick - back platform. Now wonder, in the past few years, conducting government study tours adds significant value to a travel agency’s balance sheet. In fact, these companies are all set to exploit this need for study tours and they have termed this new trend as “Agro – tourism”.
According to a news report, travel companies like Cox and Kings have packages called “Farmer specials”. In most cases, the farmers are partially funded by product companies or fully by the government. And as if the farmers weren’t learning enough from all these agro - trips, there is a report that a group of farmers from Maharashtra are going to the US to see how robots are used in farming there!
In all this, it is the taxpayer who is suffering. So far in Karnataka, the farmer - tours have cost the taxpayer Rs. 15 crore. The new Cuban rendezvous, which is expected to expose the small land owner who is practicing organic farming to the efficient organic methods in Cuba, is expected to cost us around Rs. 20 crore, a little more than usual because this time the farmers can take their spouse along.
Now we wonder which poor farmer who has less than 5 acres practices organic farming? Also we wonder how many of these study tourists are actually going to be real farmers? Wouldn’t it be more economically viable and effective if these small farmers are taken to the successfully practicing organic farmers near Mysore and Bangalore? Here the organic farmers speak the local language and are well - educated.
Two examples that come to mind are Vivek Cariappa, who runs an organic farm named Cracadona in H. D. Kote and Chidambara Shivanna who runs Oxygen Acres, an organic dairy farm on T. Narasipur Road. Both are Kannadigas, very articulate and well - informed.
The farming community in our State is pampered so much and yet their plight does not improve. May be that’s because most schemes are not well thought - out or implemented effectively. The perfect example is the loan wavier scheme.
Many of us were glad that the small farmers who have been unable to repay their loans due to erratic weather will get relief but the fact is, it was not the small farmer who benefitted as one professional farmer put it: “The small farmer never gets loan from a bank in the first place. Most of them get it from a money lender. So finally, the real beneficiaries were habitual defaulters, part - time farmers and full - time businessmen.”
Yes, the farming community is a crucial vote bank. After all, India lives in her villages as Gandhiji said, but that is changing very rapidly. Seventy million Indian villagers have migrated to cities in the last decade alone. The migration is going to continue with smaller land holdings and agriculture becoming non - viable due to various constricting government policies and its inability to effectively implement good policies. But this situation has to change, considering that we are going to be the most populated nation in the world soon and are still producing only half of what China produces per acre.
Many solutions have been brought up such as consolidating small land holdings, which then can be mechanized, getting rid of government - appointed middlemen, price control on produce, etc. These are just some of the suggestions but there are deeper issues to the problem of Indian agriculture.
Sending farmers to China, Cuba & Israel will surely open the eyes of a few farmers who understand and grasp the concept. The others will only get a foreign trip and we, the taxpayers, will suffer one more bad expense.
