Why Does the Farmer Who Grows Our Food Die in Debt?

Just consider this simple economics of the market.

A soap manufacturing company, a biscuit factory, a foreign mobile phone manufacturer, or an industrialist making cars—when they bring their product to market, who decides the MRP (Maximum Retail Price) printed on the packet? The company itself decides! It calculates its costs, adds up electricity, raw materials, employees’ salaries, and finally, adding its twenty to thirty percent profit, prints the price on the product. No government or customer can tell them, “Sell your soap for only ten rupees!”

But now look at that unfortunate Indian farmer who, to feed 140 crore people, irrigates fields with icy water in the dead of night, ploughs under the scorching midday sun, and pawns his wife’s jewellery for fertiliser and seeds.

When, after six months of back-breaking toil, he arrives at the government mandi (wholesale agricultural market) or the bazaar with his harvest of wheat, paddy, onions, or tomatoes, can he determine the price of his crop himself?

Not at all! The aadhatiya (commission agent) and the trader sitting there dictate the rate at which the farmer’s hard labour will be purchased. And all too often, the price is such that it does not even recover the farmer’s cost of production. At times, the price plummets so low that the farmer has to dump the tomatoes and cauliflowers grown with his sweat onto the streets, and return home weeping!

What kind of system is this, where the car manufacturer keeps turning into a billionaire, while the annadata (food provider) who feeds the entire world hangs himself in a noose beneath the crushing burden of debt?

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From Mandi to Parliament: Organised Anti-Farmer Economics

In his book ‘Anokha Bharat’, author N. Singh analyses three primary chakravyuhs (vicious traps) of this institutionalised plunder:

1. Industrial Inflation versus Agricultural Deflation (Inverted Price Index): Over the past fifty years, diesel prices have increased 100 times, tractor prices have risen 80 times, fertiliser and pesticide prices have soared 60 times; yet the government’s Minimum Support Price (MSP) for wheat and paddy has increased merely 15 to 20 times! Everything the farmer purchases is exorbitantly expensive, and everything he sells goes at throwaway rates.
2. Sacrificing the Farmer to Appease the Consumer: Governments always seek to keep the urban middle class and industrialists happy so that an outcry over inflation does not erupt. The moment a farmer begins to receive a slightly decent price for his crop (such as onions or wheat), the government promptly opens up imports from abroad or slaps a ban on exports so that market prices collapse! In other words, the government itself picks the farmer’s pocket to subsidise the urban consumer.
3. The Bloodthirsty Stranglehold of Commission Agents and Middlemen: Between the farmer’s field and the consumer’s plate stand 5 to 6 middlemen. Potatoes are bought from the farmer at ₹5 a kilo, and in city supermarkets the very same potatoes sell as potato chips at ₹400 a kilo, and as fresh produce at ₹30 a kilo. That 80% profit in between is swallowed by the middleman who has never swung a spade in a field for even a single day!

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Farmer versus Industrialist: The Nation’s Double Standards

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The Bitter Truth from the Book: N. Singh’s Poignant Critique

Author N. Singh writes in his book ‘Anokha Bharat’ (which he has dedicated in honour of the Indian farmer and the Indian armed forces):

“The cruellest and most merciless law of the market is that the very thing which keeps human beings alive—food—is valued at dirt-cheap prices; whilst items of sheer luxury command sky-high rates. The farmer does not die because his crop failed; the farmer dies because the plunder of his harvest enjoys state patronage. Thousands of farmers commit suicide in this country every year, yet not a single day does Parliament pass a condolence resolution; whereas if the shares of a major industrialist tumble, the Finance Ministry immediately announces a relief package! This country is not dancing on the sweat of the food provider, it is dancing on the shroud of the food provider!”
— N. Singh (Anokha Bharat, pp. 138–139)

The author further points towards a very fundamental solution:

“Until the farmer receives a legal guarantee for the comprehensive cost of his crop (the Swaminathan Commission’s C2+50% formula), flinging six thousand rupees under the Kisan Samman Nidhi is a mockery akin to rubbing salt into his wounds.”
— (Anokha Bharat, p. 144)

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Four Steps to Make the Farmer Debt-Free and Dignified

1. Legal Guarantee for MSP: Minimum Support Price must not remain merely an administrative declaration but be made a legal right; any trader purchasing below the MSP should face non-bailable imprisonment.
2. Implement the Swaminathan Commission’s C2+50% Recommendation: Cost determination must not be calculated on seeds and fertilisers alone; instead, it should account for the physical labour of the farmer and his entire family along with land rent, granting a 50% net profit on top.
3. Cold Storage and Food Processing at the Village Level: Modern solar-powered cold storages and processing units should be established across every five panchayats (village councils) so that farmers are not forced into distress-selling their harvest at throwaway prices.
4. Direct Control of Crop Insurance in the Hands of the Gram Sabha: Put an end to the billions in profits pocketed by private insurance companies; crop damage assessment should be conducted directly via satellite by the gram sabha (village assembly) and Krishi Vigyan Kendra (Agricultural Science Centre), with compensation credited directly into bank accounts within 72 hours.

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A Question Worth Pondering (The Message of the Book)

If the very farmer who fills our stomachs dies of hunger and debt, will we be able to survive inside our multi-storeyed buildings by eating currency notes and gold coins?

To comprehend this horrifying tragedy of Indian agriculture, the conspiracy of the market, and the true soul of the farmers’ movement, this chapter from N. Singh’s timeless book ‘Anokha Bharat’ must be read by every citizen who partakes of food with dignity every day.