Editorial | 30 May, 2018

Dear Citizens,

Farmers are going on leave for 10 days from 1^st June – 10^th June 2018.  Hope you know?

First of all, why should we know this? Second, what should we do, support them or criticize them?  Why should it even bother us? Don’t we get our vegetables, milk, fruits, flour, rice, etc. from markets?  So, it’s the problem of market people to think. We pay for the commodities.

But what if farmers stop giving their produce to market? Where will we get our vegetables from?

They will die if they would not sell their produce to markets.

But they are already committing suicides and dying, living under debts and in abject condition even after supplying their produce to markets.

How is it possible?

It is, if you don’t get appropriate price of your produce and if you have to throw your produce on roads or leave it in mandis as it did not fetch any money.

Do you know, what is the income of farmer?

The current average monthly income of farmers is less than Rs 4000 and out of this they also have to spend for seeds, fertilizer, irrigation, etc. They die in this income and they are dying.  They are committing suicides. They are under debts. They are all small and marginal farmers.

Question is whether we acknowledge that a farmer feeds the nation. Second, do we agree if a monthly income of less than Rs 4000 can really support a family?  Question is whether we really care for our farmers? Have farmers’ suicides become the new normal, as neither we nor the government is bothered?

This time farmers are not protesting. They are simply going on leave for 10 days.  They will not supply anything to markets. Last time, when they simply walked 200 km from Nasik to Mumbai, cityzens of Mumbai stood up for them. This time again, we should or at least, express our solidarity with farmers on social media.