Farmer organizations to meet in Raipur on Dec 14

Under the chairmanship of leader VM Singh, the country's leading farmer organizations have unanimously formed the national MSP Guarantee Kisan Morcha in Delhi. Through this, a wide farmers’ campaign is being conducted on the subject that all crops and all farmers can get a legal guarantee of minimum support price (MSP) through farmers’ mass meetings between farmer organizations and farmers across the country.

In this series of Single-Point campaigns, all active farmer organizations of the state will meet unitedly in Raipur on Wednesday December 14. This was stated in a press release issued by the Chhattisgarh Farmer and Labour Organizations.

A Kisan Sabha of all the farmer organizations of the state has been organized on the guarantee of MSP for each crop and every farmer. The main speaker of the event will be VM Singh, National President of MSP Guarantee Morcha, Raju Shetty, Maharashtra Convener and Dr Rajaram Tripathi, Chairman Of All India Farmers Alliance (AIFA) and National Spokesperson of the Morcha.

Dr Tripathi explained the objectives of the front and the organization. Due to the non-availability of remunerative prices for agricultural products to the farmers of the country, they are incurring losses of about Rs 7 lakh crores per annum. With this continuous loss of agriculture, farmers are becoming bankrupt by drowning in debt and are even committing suicide under compulsion. The remedy for this is neither inadequate grants and subsidies given in the name of fertilizers, seeds, irrigation, etc. nor loan waivers, which is like sprinkling water on a hot red pan from time to time.

Is there any permanent solution for this? According to Dr Tripathi, for a permanent solution, the government should make an efficient MSP Guarantee Act providing beneficial minimum support price to every farmer for each of his crops. This is the only solution. The agriculture of the country now needs a complete transformation. The first and essential step in this direction would be to enact an enabling law to guarantee the farmers of the country a fair price for their produce, and it would be appropriate to do this in collaboration with the farmers' organizations of the country.

This campaign has started in full swing across the country. Farmers' conferences were held in Uttarakhand in November. A huge Kisan Sabha was organized in Pune on December 1 in association with eminent farmer leader Raju Shetty. After Chhattisgarh, a Mega Meet of farmers is going to be organized in Dehradun on December 18, where farmers' organizations and lakhs of farmers from all over the country are reaching.

In this event in Chhattisgarh, all farmers' organizations, labourers, social worker organizations, intellectuals and common consumers have been invited. In the event, there will be a serious discussion on why a beneficial minimum support price (MSP) is necessary for every crop and every farmer of the country and how an enabling law can be prepared for it. A necessary strategy will also be considered to convey the information about the importance of MSP to the farmers and the benefits of its legal guarantee in every village, every house, and every farmer of Chhattisgarh state. Suggestions will also be taken from all the farmer organizations and districts of the organization. And there will also be brainstorming on expansion up to the development block level.