Agriculture facing severe crisis: Sharad Joshi

hyderabad: the situation of the indian farmer and the status of agriculture in the country was precarious and the wto agreement on agriculture never stopped either the central or state governments from providing subsidies to farmers. declaring this at a meeting the high level task force on agriculture had here with farmers, agri industry representatives, officials and representatives of political parties, task force chairman sharad joshi said these conditions, however, should not lead the country to shy away from the world trade organisation regime.the wto provides a multilateral platform for the country to trade with other nations. in the absence of a similar platform, india would have to deal with the rest of the countries on a bilateral basis which could be a near impossible task, he said. he also said that soil fertility levels were being affected, the capital has eroded, groundwater levels were going down and the farmer, rather than face the humiliation of forcible loan recovery, prefers suicide. the meeting was attended by agriculture minister v shobhanadreeswara rao, top agriculture department officials, task force members p p prabhu and prof abhijit sen among others. the wto, joshi said, was like the kargil battle. even as we suffer initial losses, this period should be used to build up capacity and overcome weaknesses and use the regime to our advantage. most woes faced by indian farmers were on account of lack of will by governments and the fact that the first generation reforms completely bypassed the agriculture sector. shobhanadreeswara rao, expressing concern, called for subsidised premia for crop insurance for small farmers, minimum support price for chilli and turmeric and availability of credit for ryots on par with the industrial sector. while former mp and farmer leader y sivaji said diversion of farm workers to other livelihoods must be done only after ensuring alternate jobs, bjp mla hari babu said the governments must stop blaming the wto for all problems faced by farmers. "the claim is that subsidies are not being given to farmers as wto prohibits them. the fact is the governments have no money to do so and we should tell the truth to farmers," he said. b rajvardhan reddy of the bharatiya kisan sangh said that instead of the central committee on agriculture costs and prices that determines msp for various crops, regional boards must be set up as a national body cannot fix prices for all parts of the country. he also said that india must renegotiate its terms and pull out of the wto. former vice-chancellor of the acharya n g ranga agriculture university m v rao called for improvement of legal and economic expertise to face the wto challenges. ap farmers federation president p chengal reddy called for setting up of independent committees at the state and central level which can look into issues relating to wto. he also called for setting up of commodity-wise committees in all the states.