Krishi Budget presented at the Second Kisan Sansad

A kisan sansad was organised by the Jai Kisan Andolan of Swaraj Abhiyan on 1st February 2017 at the Jantar Mantar in New Delhi. This initiative was taken in the face of consistent disregard by the central government of the miserable conditions of farmers. The following points were included in the budget proposals of this Kisan Sansad.

  1. A statutory National Farmers’ Income Commission should be established under a new Farmers’ Income Guarantee Act. This Commission will assess farm household incomes and make all interventions towards delivering sustainable living incomes to farm households.
  2. To assure remunerative and universal price yield for the farmers, which should guarantee that farmers earn 50% profit over the cost of production and that prices are stabilised through MSP and PDS for all crops. To allocate adequate funds for one-time freedom from debt of 18 crore farming households. This fund should be used for transferring all private loans to institutional loans, waiving selected loans and restructuring others, clearing all payments due to the farmers from FCI, enhanced compensation for crop losses and creating a credit guarantee fund for tenant farmers.
  3. To ensure that institutional credit reaches the actual cultivators – especially tenant and women farmers. There should no collateral for loans up to one lakh.
  4. To provide compensation for eliminating the adverse impact of demonetisation.
  5. To provide support to the families of farmers who have committed suicide, through ex-gratia payment of 5 lakhs per family, waiver or one time settlement by government of all loans, support for securing livelihood of surviving family, educational support for the children of deceased farmers and provision of social security schemes to the family on priority basis.
  6. To provide fund for research to evolve technologies that are sustainable and are geared towards farmers real needs on the ground.
  7. To promote agro-ecological farming by promoting traditional and organic farming without the use of harmful chemicals and technologies.
  8. To achieve farmer-led self reliance in seeds by eliminating farmers’ dependence on seed companies and dealers, and by reviving plant diversity.
  9. To create a mission to provide support to rain-fed agriculture which constitutes more than 60% of all agriculture in India. The Mission should focus on drought-proofing agriculture, reorienting support systems to suit the requirements of rain-fed agriculture, ensuring critical irrigation to dryland crops while conserving groundwater and investing in watersheds and other minor irrigation systems.
  10. To promote formation of small and marginal farmers’ collectives and to provide them sufficient working capital and assistance to build processing and storage facilities.
  11. To ensure that the actual cultivators get access to all government support systems by recognising all tenants and sharecroppers by recording all oral and other leases in villages, and by having a credit guarantee fund to provide credit to them.
  12. To promote livestock rearing activity for farmers, to promote indigenous breeds and biodiversity, to improve technology, and to provide institutions, research and financial support to the sector.
  13. To establish the National Disaster Mitigation Fund which earlier governments never implemented though it is mandated by the Disaster Management Act. This will support disaster-proofing including drought mitigation.
  14. To assist all states in completion of pending irrigation projects which require less than Rs.200 crore for completion. This will be subject to time-bound completion within the next 3 years and the condition that the funds would not be used for establishment and salary expenditure.

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