What is responsible for the shooting prices of vegetables this year?
The shortage is due to El Nino and La Nina. The farmer in India is very dependent on the monsoon. The only alternative would be to go in for hothouse cultivation like Algeria or Egypt has.
Are you suggesting that we overhaul the agricultural production system to create a buffer against monsoon vagaries?
Don't indulge in this kind of Leftist jargon. As it is, socialists and Left economists have always conducted a malicious propaganda that the farmer pays no taxes and takes most subsidies. Anyone who believes that doesn't know his onions. We are a divided nation, India and Bharat. Our compatriots forget that our countrymen are on the brink of suicide. All that they care for is the cracking of their monthly budgets.
But isn't the middleman not responsible in part for the current crisis?
Most middlemen are doing a very difficult job under the worst of circumstances. The idea that the consumer's price should be equal to farmers' price is incorrect. When there is a 40 per cent shortfall, prices won't rise only 40 per cent. They could go up four times. Similarly, a five per cent increase in production will bring down prices by huge margins. Elasticity of demand has to be taken into account. Middlemen are not the cause of farmers' suffering.
What does the farmer do under the circumstances?
He must be allowed to develop some fat for a lean season. And this cannot be done if the government persists in dumping in the name of imports. India is the only instance where the government dumps on its own countrymen. Look at the case of Australian wheat. Was it necessary? What happened to the farmer in Punjab? Everything is focused only on city people: "Our life must continue, no matter what."
What is your solution?
We do not want alms in the form of subsidy. Let the market forces govern and the farmers determine their own price. Citified people must suffer along with them when there is a bad crop. A good crop instead of benefiting only urban consumers must prove profitable to farmers as well. Then these crises can be avoided.
