57.1 Problems with agriculture

Because incomes are not rising as fast as prices are, the per-capita consumption of commodities like pulses is decreasing every month. Due to excessive use of irrigation, chemical pesticides, chemical fertilizers etc is ruining the land and also worsening the health of those who are eating the food made out of these products.

57.2 RRP proposals to improve Agriculture , Food Supply

1. Right to Recall National/State Agriculture Minister and Right to Recall National/State Irrigation Minister will reduce corruption in Agriculture and Irrigation.

2. RTR Agriculture Minister will also improve warehousing and number of cold storages. It will reduce food wastages.

3. Increase in support prices. This will enable farmers to pay for canal maintenance and water charges

4. The drafts of EAS.01 (see http://rahulmehta.com/eas001.htm ) and EAS.03 (see http://rahulmehta.com/eas003.htm ) will improve water supply

5. The metering of agriculture water, and de-subsidizing the water will reduce water wastage, improve water supply, and also reduce water logging.

6. Ban harmful pesticides and cancel subsidies to all pesticides. Increase the support prices to cover the increase in prices.

7. Ban exports of all agricultural goods including basmati, meat, eggs, milk, cotton etc

8. Ban Jatropa growing. We don’t have enough land and waters to grow food, and some people with 4-digit IQ want to grow crops so that car-owners can get diesel for cheap !!

9. Cancel all subsidies to chicken, eggs, meat . This will reduce the amount of grain etc needed, because 1 kg of meat needs same water/land etc as 20 kg of wheat.

10. Cancel subsidies on chemical fertilizer at the rate of 20% a year, and raise support price so that farmer can cover the cost of organic fertilizers.

11. Cancel subsidies on diesel at the rate of 20% a year. Raise support prices to cover the increase in the costs.’

12. Cancel all electricity subsidies at the rate of 20% a year. Raise support prices to cover the increase in the costs.

13. Cancel subsidies to tractors at the rate of 20% a year. And raise support prices to cover the costs farmer will have to bear to buy tractor and/or use bullocks.

14. Improve ration card system by enacting Right to Recall District Supply Officer and giving choice to citizens to change Ration Card Owner

15. Add pulses to Ration Card System.

16. Add desi cow milk to Ration Card System

17. Impose agricultural land tax of 2% value above 5 acres per farmer family member. Farmer family member will be a person whose non-farming income is below Rs 200,000 a year and lives in the same village in which land is for at least 180 days in that year. This will reduce absentee landlordism. Absentee landlordism decreases per acre agriculture output as landless farmer will . And decrease in absentee landlordism will increase per acre output.

57.3 Reducing farmer’s suicides

The farmers’ suicides are due top usury i.e. very high interest charged by money lenders. The Gazette Notifications drafts to reduce usury problem is given in section-37.2. One more law-draft I propose is that if a person has less than 5 acres of agricultural land, he cannot use it as collateral to get loans. This will ensure that farmer will never face fear of losing his land.

57.4 How replacing input subsidies by raising support prices reduces many problems

There are two broad ways to subsidize agriculture.—raise the subsidy in inputs such as water, fertilizer, pesticide, diesel, electricity , tractors etc and other way is to raise the support price, if the prevailing market price is less than costs plus normal profits. The laws-drafts I have proposed above are based on decreasing input subsidies to zero, and raising support prices. This reduces use of chemical fertilizer, electricity, tractors, diesel, electricity etc without increasing total costs and without increasing total subsidies. Above all, it increase the final price of meat without increase final price of grain !! And this it decreases consumption of non-vegetarian food as well, and thus decreases total production of grains etc without reducing consumption of humans. So it also reduces damage done to environment. Now what if too much theft etc occur at ration shop and warehouses? Well, once Right to Recall District Supply Officer and RTR over Agriculture Minister comes, both these problems will reduce.

So above are the Gazette Notification drafts I at RRP propose to reduce problems of agriculture and farmers’ suicide.

57.5 What can YOU do to improve agriculture and quality of food in India?

Please read chap-13 of this book http://rahulmehta.com/301.htm . It has several steps where-in you can spend 6 hours a week and help to bring TCP draft in Gazette in India. The steps involve distributing pamphlets, informing citizens on motives of leaders such as Congress MPs, BJP MPs, The Anna etc who oppose TCP draft, by giving newspaper ads and contesting elections. Once TCP gets printed in Gazette, using TCP, it will become easy for activists to get citizens’ opinion law-drafts necessary to improve agriculture and quality of food. With this, activists can ban use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, tractors, impose wealth tax on agricultural land over 5 acre per person, increase purchase prices of food, increase subsidies on food, decrease subsidies on water\electricity. Thus activists can raise production of food as well as improve quality of food.