Blog: Small Farmers’ Expectations

Can we imagine the extent of the waste this unfortunate decision of the small planters is causing? Lack of income to the State, lack of income to the farmers themselves, the effect on the economy and above all essentially lack of produce for food. Should we consider this as a criminal act or a desperate act?

Planters are proud, independent-minded, self-reliant people. They have ushered the democratisation of the economy on their own efforts much before it had become official policy. Coming from a small planter’s family, I have personally followed and live the experience of their heroic struggle, not only for survival but to ensure the education of the children to tertiary level, from law to medicine, arts, science, technology and management.

My personal interest dates back to early 1960s. Rajen Gayan introduced me to the Young Farmers Movement and Clovis Vellin, founder/leader of Young Farmer’s Club. I met Vishnu Lutchmeenaraidoo and Raj Virahsawmy there.

I was pleasantly surprised to read page 84 of Jayen Cataree’s book ‘Behind the Purple Curtain’. He has recorded my interest in farming. We used to meet together with Vijay Joypaul at Dr. Philippe Forget’s residence practically every Sunday.

Dr. Vellin and Dr. Forget were great patriotic visionaries. Under their guidance, Vishnu, Raj, Ayle Duvall, Mamode, Sham Motah and I formed the backbone of the movement. We received the full support of SSR, Sir Satcam and the patronage of the then governor, Sir John Shaw Rennie. Sir John and SSR used to attend our field days. Tyfaite, the Young Farmer’s Agricultural and Industrial Exhibition, was organised for the first time in 1966 at Rose Hill stadium.

The Young Farmers Movement aimed at bringing young people back to the land. OXFAM, the British charity extended a financial help and funded two British young farmers to help us. It also funded my full time attachment as deputy national organiser and editor of farmer’s bulletin. L’Express made me ‘Jeune de l’Année’ in 1966 and Dr. Vellin ‘l’Homme de l’Année’ later. Those were the days of agricultural diversification from sugarcane.

Then what is wrong today? With two billion rupees security fund, excellent cadres of AREU, easy finance from DBM, what is the rational behind small farmers abandoning their lands? It is thanks to Vishnu Lutchmeenaraidoo’s decision to implement the scheme I coordinated to give 80% of the revenue of sugar proceeds within 15 days of the cane harvest that the small planters still grow sugarcane.

We cannot afford to allow thousands of acres of land to go waste. The expectations of the small farmers to come back to land cultivation are:

• Minimum guaranteed price to their produce through the marketing board. Similar scheme exists in Israel.

• Writing off of accumulated interest of agricultural loans and writing off of the dept on failed crops due to disaster such as cyclones and droughts on the Indian model. The small farmers should be made debt-free to give them a fresh start.

• Agricultural loan should not carry fixed and floating charges. It is just unfair.

• AREU should go to the farmer and bring to him on his farms all advice, support and knowhow on the American system. This system has allowed America to feed itself and the whole world.

• During the recent BOI meeting on Tertiary education, I met the director of Open and Distance Education of the Agricultural University of Tamil Nadu. He told me that farm schools should be setup to educate the children of farmers. With proper education and training, every morning they can go and pluck money from mixed farming. This scheme can easily create 7000 jobs.

The import bill of fruits, juices, milk, milk products and other agricultural produce are in billions of rupees. At least we can substitute parts of the imports and put the money in the farmers’ pockets.

Is there a leader capable enough to meet the small farmers’ expectations?


Source: Le Matinal 2.03.12