Agriculture - Crop raising ; harvesting and returns.......... what happens ?

Uzhavukkum thozhilukkum vandhanai seyvoum

        veenil undu kalithiruporai nindhanai seyvom ...

is what the great Poet Bharathiar aptly said in the early part of 20th century.  The translation into English of the above would be :  "Worship the plough (which gives food) and our work; Give no respect or criticize   those who hate to do work.”

Agriculture in India is one of the most prominent sectors in its economy. Agriculture and allied sectors accounts for 18.6% of the  GDP and employed d 60% of the country's population. It accounts for 8.56% of India’s exports. About 43% of India's geographical area is used for agricultural activity. Despite a steady decline of its share in the GDP, agriculture is still the largest economic sector and plays a significant role in the overall socio-economic development of India. The monsoons play a critical role in the Indian sub-continent's agriculture in determining whether the harvest will be bountiful, average, or poor in any given year. The entire rainfall in the sub-continent is concentrated in the few monsoon months. Rice is predominantly cultivated in South India as it is staple food for the south Indians.    Here  the traditional hand methods of cultivating and harvesting rice are still practiced.  The introduction of high-yielding varieties of seeds after 1965 and the increased use of fertilizers and irrigation are known collectively as the Green Revolution, which provided the increase in production needed to make India self-sufficient in food grains, thus improving agriculture in India. Famine in India, once accepted as inevitable, has not returned since the introduction of Green Revolution crops.

But the plight of the farmers is deteriorating day by day and the tiller is not able to get reasonable produce / return for all the efforts put in.  There are pathetic reports of farmers committing suicide, not for want of any unnecessary needs but unable to meet their both ends meet.  This does not augur for the Indian society and there can never be any comparison with the West on this.   In our country the farmers are poverty stricken lot whilst the westerners are most secured. The unfortunate tiller has to fight right from the beginning for getting good seeds, pray for rains, put in great efforts and when the produce is ready has to make distraught sale as no storage facility would be available and the procurement price would be too low.

There were sudden rains in December and this is what happened to the crops.

1)        the farmer ruing the damaged crops

2)        harvesting the wet crops

 

3)                 rice kept at the Govt procurement centre in open damaged by rains

Thus there are times when everything else goes right – i.e., the produce is rich, Farmers are able to harvest them properly but due to the poor design and planning, the crops go waste before they are sold and thus no monetary returns……….    Who is to be blamed for this dire situation which has repeated many a times… 

With regards – S. Sampathkumar
written on 3.1.2012 and posted now...