Farmer unions need to expand the scope of their advocacy.
Every day, a gold miner in Russia leaves a mine with a wheelbarrow full of sand. Every day, the guard thoroughly checks the sand. On his retirement day, the guard asks the worker, “I know you have been stealing something, but can’t figure out what it is”. The worker whispers back, “I wasn’t hiding anything in the sand, I stole the wheelbarrows”. A similar predicament of limited perspective afflicts India’s farmer unions. The leadership of many unions, secure in their certainties, are oblivious to the larger picture. More likely, in order to hold on to their leadership role within the organisations they represent, they have simply confined themselves to issues that resonate with farmers.
The transformation of rural livelihoods across India based on minimum support prices, free electricity and cheap fertilisers is not sustainable. Advocating on limited issues for decades, farmer unions have been conceding the agriculture policy space to business-funded lobby groups.
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