Among the 38 demands that the Manifesto outlines, the first is Setting up of a Shetkari Kamgar Commission or Agrarian Welfare Commission. This will be a statutory body and comprise not just government officials but eminent independent experts on the agrarian sector. Any new, incoming government must also commit to a special session of the Assembly on the agrarian crisis and related issues, the Manifesto states.

Senior journalist and expert on the rural political economy, P Sainath and scientist Dinesh Abrol released the document.

Empahsising the crucial need to supplement the existing and totally inadequate Minimum Support Price for cash crops like cotton, soybean and sugarcane in Maharashtra with a 20 % bonus, the Manifesto states that both Tamil Nadu and Kerala have long had this practice where the state adds a sum to the Central MSP for their own requirements. (A bonus of 30 % for paddy and 20 % for wheat was announced as PM guarantee in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh during the respective state elections. Why not the same principle in Maharashtra?) Besides, the Farmers Manifesto states that the state should intervene more strongly in the purchase of soya bean and cotton to stabilize the incomes of farmers of Maharashtra.

Besides, the new government must speedily curb the runaway rise in the cost of inputs due to the corporate capture of input production and supply. Maharashtra is in a situation where many farmers did not realize even their production costs across multiple crops last season. Farmers must be compensated for their loss of income. The new government must waive off all outstanding agricultural loans of farmers from suicide-affected families and provide appropriate opportunities to children of all such families.

Recognising the crucial issue of failing agricultural credit, the document states that, “ Mumbai being the headquarters of institutions like NABARD and the financial capital of India, the new government must leverage  its strength to oppose any dilution of apex DFI status of NABARD and ensure that the flow of NABARD concessionary funds are strengthened in the interest of landless, small, marginal farmers and development of people centric cooperative banking in India in general and Maharashtra in particular.

In addition, “The new government will have to take the responsibility of evolving at least 100 bankable models of Integrated farming and processing of farm products to support agro-ecological approaches in the state of Maharashtra. Marketing support by Govt should be part of the plan. The new government will have to ensure an increase in rural branches of banks and increase staff strength to support the holistic development of agriculture and allied sectors.”

The entire detailed document may be read here:

October 28, 2024

Kisan Mazdoor Commission and Nation for Farmers declare a

FARMERS’ MANIFESTO FOR MAHARASHTRA

It is imperative that crucial demands of the agrarian sector feature in the manifestos and debates of all political parties before the elections are held in Maharashtra. There is no state in the country where the impact of the agrarian crisis has taken a greater toll, as for instance, in the distress suicides of farmers. The Kisan Mazdoor Commission and Nation for Farmers believe that all political parties with farmers’ interests at heart should commit themselves to the following:

1. Setting up of a Shetkari Kamgar Commission or Agrarian Welfare Commission. It will be a statutory body and comprise not just government officials but eminent independent experts on the agrarian sector. Any new, incoming government must commit to a special session of the Assembly on the agrarian crisis and related issues.

2. A new government must commit itself to supplementing the existing and totally inadequate Minimum Support Price for cash crops like cotton, soybean and sugarcane in Maharashtra with a 20 % bonus. Tamil Nadu and Kerala have long had this practice where the state adds a sum to the Central MSP for their own requirements. (A bonus of 30 % for paddy and 20 % for wheat was announced as PM guarantee in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh during the respective state elections. Why not the same principle in Maharashtra?) The state should intervene more strongly in the purchase of soya bean and cotton to stabilize the incomes of farmers of Maharashtra.

3. The new government must speedily curb the runaway rise in the cost of inputs due to the corporate capture of input production and supply. Maharashtra is in a situation where many farmers did not realize even their production costs across multiple crops last season. Farmers must be compensated for their loss of income. The new government must waive off all outstanding agricultural loans of farmers from suicide-affected families and provide appropriate opportunities to children of all such families.

4. The new government must waive the debt of small and marginal farmers (owning land less than 10 hectares) to create a clean slate for the holistic development of agricultural and allied sectors in Maharashtra. It must plug the loopholes of the loan waiver process in Maharashtra. The positive process on loan waiver initiated by the Maharashtra government between 2019-2022 was subjected to much damage by the successor government. This must be set right. Agricultural loans must be a right for every farmer.

5. Remunerative prices must be given to all crops including millets, pulses, vegetables, and fruits, milk and other such identifiable produce so that farmers of Maharashtra can move to a developed cropping system while reducing the water footprint.

6. The new government must speedily address land rights issues. For generations, thousands of farmers have been cultivating lands classified as Class 3 Devsthan and Inami lands. These lands are technically owned by the Temple Trusts and as a result, the farmers cannot access any benefits of government agriculture schemes, nor can they create assets such as wells, pipelines, etc. We demand that these land titles be transferred as Class 1 land with the names of the cultivators as owners.

7. In Maharashtra, no government can further delay dealing with the burning issues related to the Forest Rights Act. The new government must stop the uprooting of Adivasi farmers in the name of compensatory afforestation and ensure strict implementation without dilution of Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act and Forest Rights Act, 2006. The government must provide land and livelihood rights to the landless and project-affected people, and give them agricultural and homestead land, water for fishing, cultivation, livestock-rearing and mining of minor minerals. The new government shall set up a dedicated state authority to sort out the implementation of FRA. It shall provide necessary financial and technical help to develop as well as implement a plan for the land forest dwellers get under community forest rights so that they can have a dignified and prosperous life based on Jal, Jangal and Jameen.

8. The government must declare there will be no privatization of water in any form. And that all distribution of water will be equitable and just. An equitable minimum of water, necessary for livelihood, to be provided to every rural family living off agriculture and related livelihoods along the lines of the Atpadi tahsil pattern. Given that the idea originated with him, the new government will call this programme the Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Samanyayi Pani Vattap Yojana (Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Equitable Water Distribution Programme).

9. Real cultivators including tenant farmers, sharecroppers, women farmers, lessee cultivators and rural workers will have to be registered immediately to ensure their access to benefits of all schemes for agriculture. The government must identify, recognize, and protect the interests and rights of tenant farmers. Including extending to them the benefits of all official schemes relating to agriculture. The KMC and NFF understand ‘farmer’ to mean and include landed farmers, landless farmers (agricultural labourers), tenant farmers, women farmers, Dalit farmers, Adivasi farmers, livestock (including dairy) farmers, nomadic pastoralists, forest produce gatherers and fisher-folk.

10. The new govt must review the Sagarmala projects and dilution of Coastal Regulation guidelines displacing the fishermen to help corporates in the name of tourism and infrastructure development. It will take all efforts to declare traditional fishermen as scheduled tribes and provide them adequate subsidies for fuel and equipment.

11. A new government must ensure the distribution of Gairan/wasteland grazing land for scheduled caste and scheduled tribe landless labourers. It must also implement measures for land distribution and housing for SC/STs; (enactment Maharashtra GR of 1978 and 1991). Further, it must ensure that the Atrocities Act is strictly implemented to ensure that encroachers on land granted to SCs under this law, are removed and other preventive measures under the law implemented.

12. In 2019, Maharashtra State government formed Gopinath Munde Corporation for Sugarcane. The corporation was to give ID cards to all sugarcane cutters, provide life insurance, accident cover, hostel facilities for children of sugarcane cutters and medical facilities at work, but lies dormant. We demand the Corporation be made active and functional and fulfil its mandate.

13. The new government will have to ensure that every woman in the village wishing to start “parasbaug” cultivation is given 100% subsidy to cultivate the backyards of their houses. Women mostly take care of all domestic work and also take care of children and the elderly and also then do agricultural work on their own farms. They should be given Rs. 5000 per month to compensate for the unpaid work by the state government.

14. The Dongrgaon (Sangola taluka, Solapur district) pattern of collective farming by the Dalit families (who have fragmented small holdings and also highly degraded lands) should be evolved into a generalized system of farming for the farmers of similar means. Greenhouses for protected cultivation should be supported to supplement the incomes. The government will have to monitor caste-based atrocities and ensure land parcels to landless SC/ST labour.

15. The new government should stand against GM food crops until and if their safety has been established through unbiased, neutral, third party studies. It must legally recognise land rights, water rights, bio-resource rights, rights of rivers and abandon projects which include diversion of rivers for so-called interlinking of rivers to protect rights over common property resources. It must withdraw the sanction to pesticides that have been banned elsewhere.

16. The new government will undertake the agenda of health impact assessment of workers doing hazardous (e.g. pesticide spray) work in the case of agriculture and allied sectors. The government will have to announce a policy for the promotion of agro-ecological approaches in cultivation and farming systems being pursued in the state of Maharashtra, and revive local seed diversity, so that farmers can build economically viable, ecologically sustainable, autonomous and climate resilient agriculture.

Land rights

17. Vast areas of agricultural land and forest are being handed over for urban and industrial development without the required assessment of essentiality of SEZs, expressways and due diligence in respect of ecological, social and economic impacts of the neo-colonial type of land and water transfer from the villages to cities and metropolis promoting dependent import and export-oriented development. Land is the progenitor of food and water, a basic for human survival. The new government must enunciate a policy for the restoration of balance and revitalization of health of vital and diverse ecosystems in the state.

18. The new government must immediately stop land acquisition or land pooling without informed consent of farmers; there can be no acquisition or diversion of agricultural land for commercial development or for creation of land banks; it must prevent the bypassing or dilution of the Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act 2013, at the state level; and evolve land use and agricultural land and common lands protection policy at once to prevent agrarian distress.

Reviewing hydropower and green energy projects and assessing potential vulnerabilities 

19. Massive expansion of pumped storage based in hydropower projects is being planned in the entire western ghat areas of Maharashtra. This would entail construction of new reservoirs either upstream or downstream of the existing reservoirs and can be destructive to the fragile western ghat ecosystem and the lives and livelihoods of people living in these areas. We demand that the new government immediately announce stopping of the projects planned to benefit Adani Green Power. These projects must be reviewed and sanctioned on a case by case basis for any further steps. The new government will have to assess the costs and vulnerabilities of the green energy projects and explore the alternatives for storage and decide how much of pumped storage should be built.

20. The new government should prevent unscientific and undemocratic use of common property resources for green energy projects such as solar panel parks and pump storage. We urgently need a democratic and scientific land and water use policy. The unmet real needs of ecological infrastructure for food, water security and sustainable livelihoods must be prioritized if Maharashtra’s people as a whole are to survive democratically even in the near future. The Shaktipeeth Highway project should be fully scrapped.

Reimplementation of 2015 GR on PDS benefits for families affected by farmers’ suicides 

21. The new government will have to delink benefits of state or central government schemes for agriculture and allied sectors, crop insurance or farm subsidies from land ownership. It must implement the Government Resolution dated June 18, 2019, announced by the state revenue department for women from suicide-hit farm families. That 2015 GR promised public distribution (PDS) benefits for families in 13 districts affected by farmers’ suicides. This GR was cancelled in 2023. We demand immediate restoration of implementation of this GR.

Centre intervention in providing the mandatory medical, life insurance, and loan cover policy for farmers 

22. There must be a complete overhaul of the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana. Several states have already set up their own, or hybrid schemes (like Gujarat). Insurance in this sector must be run by public providers and not by corporate insurance providers who have milked thousands of crores from the scheme – with little benefit to the farmer. The latest of these scandals is the loot of farmers in Parbhani district. In fact, corporate insurers routinely dismiss lakhs of claims across the country. We demand medical and life insurance cover to all farmers premium of which should be paid by government. Besides, compulsory loan cover policy should be there for all farmers for which the government should pay premium.

Timely crop and livestock compensation due to natural calamities

23. The new government must ensure timely, effective and adequate compensation for crop and livestock loss due to natural disasters; implement comprehensive crop insurance that benefits farmers and not corporations, and which will cover all types of risks for all types of losses in agriculture with the individual farmer as the unit of damage assessment. The new government must reverse anti-farmer changes in the Manual for Drought Management.

24. Agriculture in Maharashtra is increasingly impacted by climate change. The new government must move swiftly to protect the health and safety of farmers and farm workers. For instance, enable the creation of dug out shelters on every farm. This past summer, farm labourers were toiling in temperatures of 45 C and worse. We also demand creation of common storage and shelters to help small farmers and agricultural workers cope with the coming heat waves. Public investment in the management of rainfall and irrigation water to ensure availability of critical moisture for cultivation and livestock rearing and for meeting drinking water needs is a must. The new government must take the required steps to provide protective irrigation through sustainable means for farmers, especially in the rain-fed areas.

To benefit the women farmers the MNREGA wages to not be less than the statewide announced minimum wage

25. The performance of the state in terms of providing work under the MNREGA has moved from poor to dismal. The result is a deepening of agrarian distress. The new government must commit to expanding and deepening the wage rate and number of workdays available to rural households. The wage in MGNREGA should under no circumstances be less than the statewide announced minimum wage. Beyond the MNREGA, landless labourers desperately need other sources of sustenance and support. These would particularly foreground the rights of women landless labourers to small plots of land enabling them to engage in livestock rearing, poultry and kitchen gardens. They must have priority in access to common lands. Women farmers, landed or landless, are in a terrible situation in Maharashtra. The above measures would include full and equal rights of landless farmers to common assets, like water resources, including access to community wells, tubewells, and more. All these above rights would particularly focus on Dalits and Adivasis.

Robust employment and pension schemes

26. We demand a minimum of Rs. 5000/-as pension per month per family of farmer. We demand free education at all schools/colleges/universities for farmer’s children. There should be a policy for reservation of vacancies in agriculture-based industries for farmers’ children. Hostel facilities for farmers’ children should be ensured at taluka and district level for all the relevant places in Maharashtra. The new government must commit to immediately launching a robust pension scheme for small and marginal farmers and agricultural workers. It needs to also rejuvenate and make robust the crumbling public distribution system. The new government will have to ensure remunerative guaranteed prices for milk and eggs and its procurement from dairies and poultry to supplement nutritional security through Mid Day Meal Scheme and Integrated Child Development Scheme etc.

27. The new government must introduce a new “Urban Employment Guarantee Scheme” with focus on meeting local milk needs and allowing land use for livestock rearing, waste to wealth, municipal food forests, vegetable gardens, home gardens etc, The new government will have to prepare a 5 year plan for credit with involvement of farmer organisations, urban agriculture producers and local bodies to support a systematic development of rural and urban agriculture.

Leveraging the role of NABARD, cooperative and public sector banks to evolve bankable models of integrated farming practices.

28. Mumbai being the headquarters of institutions like NABARD and the financial capital of India, the new government must leverage  its strength to oppose any dilution of apex DFI status of NABARD and ensure that the flow of NABARD concessionary funds are strengthened in the interest of landless, small, marginal farmers and development of people centric cooperative banking in India in general and Maharashtra in particular.

29. The new government will have to take the responsibility of evolving at least 100 bankable models of Integrated farming and processing of farm products to support agro-ecological approaches in the state of Maharashtra. Marketing support by Govt should be part of the plan. The new government will have to ensure an increase in rural branches of banks and increase staff strength to support the holistic development of agriculture and allied sectors.

30. Public sector Banks (PSBs) should not be privatized to protect the interests of the farmers, and their governing boards should have the representatives of organizations of small and marginal farmers. In the state of Maharashtra, credit deposit ratio should be at least 80% for every branch and every block. The new government will have to stop the banks from collecting bank charges from small depositors. The new government will have to constitute a committee for agricultural and rural credit and recommend steps to remove regional imbalances in banking. The new government will have to give representation to the farmers on state level bankers committee at State level, District level, and block level.

31. Any digital database of farmers being created should be inclusive, and not be limited to land owning farmers. All farmers (as defined by the census, Swaminathan commission, and Doubling Farmers Income committee) should receive benefits of all government schemes for agriculture. The methodology to create such an inclusive database can be announced by taking the best from the process followed by the Governments of Odisha and other such states where the rights of tenant farmers, women farmers and dalit farmers have been recognised.

32. The new Maharashtra government should abandon the Aadhaar Number Database and related National Population Register, the Farmers digital ID-based Database, and resist these and databases like AGRISTACK being handed over to private corporates It must stop biometric profiling based land-titling, and hand over control of data on land and cultivation for open and transparent policy-making and data use by farmers and state, district and village governments. The government must universalize benefits of the Public Distribution System including cereals and nutria-cereals, pulses, sugar and oils without linking it to Aadhaar Number, or biometric identification, and without shifting to direct cash transfer.

33. The new government will have to address the menace of stray animals by removing all legal and vigilante-imposed restrictions on cattle trade, also compensating farmers for the destruction occurring through the invasion of crops by wild animals and supporting proactively animal shelters. There is an urgent need to encourage biomass-based infrastructure development.

34. The new government will announce the review of projects sanctioned in the case of foreign direct investment on open general license by the central government to carry out due diligence on the front of ecological, economic and social impacts, and take up with the central government the issue of removing agriculture from FTAs and WTO negotiations.

35. The new government will have to protect the farmers from corporate plunder in the name of contract farming by reviewing the Contract Farming Act 2018. It must bring a white paper on Farmer Producer Organizations and stop corporatization of agriculture and takeover by MNCs. The new government must stop permission to collect any further data from the farmers of Maharashtra by corporates like ITC, Agribazaar, Amazon, CISCO, ESRI, JIO, Microsoft, NeML, Ninjacart, Digital Green and Partanjali.

36. The policy of no to corporate control in agricultural R&D and innovation domain will have to be implemented in the case of SAUs. R&D and innovation directions will have to be supported by the new government to promote agroecological approaches & biomass based industrialization.

37. The newly launched Shetkari Kamgar / Agrarian Welfare Commission would have to immediately address the dismal conditions of power supply and irrigation in the farm sector. It must begin by ending the loot of these sectors in Maharashtra.

38. The above measures would go way beyond rural benefit to also lessen the pressure in the urban migration crisis of the state. This nature of public investment will have a multiplier effect across Maharashtra. All the above measures would create jobs, regenerate natural resources, enhance well-being, and add to agricultural productivity.

It’s worth remembering that our treatment of farmers, both in Maharashtra and across India stands now for decades in violation of the rights guaranteed to them under the Constitution of India. Fundamentally, the Indian Constitution, through Articles 14, 15 and 19 in Chapter IIII guarantees the Right to Life, Equality before the Law, Life without Discrimination to all Indians, including obviously to every farmer and all peoples working in Rural India. Besides, the Directive Principles of State Policy in Chapter IV guarantee adequate means of livelihood, equitable distribution of material resources, prevention of concentration of wealth all of which assert that Farmer and Rural Workers Rights are Human Rights. Can anyone claim that farmers are in reality enjoying these rights?

And yet, it was the Kisan andolan at the gates of Delhi that defended these rights for all citizens, indeed defended the Constitution itself. It is now our turn to defend these rights for the kisan and mazdoor.

Related:

Can MVA Reverse Modi Govt’s Broken Promises to Farmers? | Vijay Jawandhia & Teesta   Setalvad

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