NEWSLETTER | The dying fields
The HinduPublished : Mar 12, 2024 21:04 IST - 4 MINS READ “Most things, except agriculture, can wait,” Jawaharlal Nehru once said, underlining the pivotal role farming plays in the country’s growth. As the second-largest producer of agricultural commodities and a key exporter to over 200 countries, India’s farmers also play a crucial role in feeding the world. Chaudhury Charan Singh, often described as the “Champion of India’s peasants”, rode to power on the back of land reforms and liberating farmers from moneylenders. Given the precarity of farming and farmers, given the vulnerability and debt into which neoliberal agri-business policies have pushed them, given the support and subsidies given to farmers in the West vis-a-vis the controls imposed on farmers in the Global South, one would have expected the government to be more supportive of its food producers.