The Hindu Business Line : How two countries treat their farmers

The Canadian nation as a whole was more sensitive to the recent blockade by 200 farmers than India has been to suicides by over 20,000 farmers since 1995.

Throughout Easter, for farmers it was a harvest of innumerable hardships. Farmer suicides increased after the Hyderabad conclave of the Ministers of Agriculture and their Secretaries, organised by the Union Minister for Agriculture, Mr Sharad Pawar, with the express objective of addressing the problem. The conclave ended with the decision to study the problems of lack of credit and the high risk of crop losses.

The fact that over 20,000 farmers have committed suicide in India since 1995 came up before the meeting of the Board of Advisors of the World Agricultural Forum held in Washington D.C., on April 24 and 25. The Board could see no link between the suicides and the WTO agreements signed at Marrakesh in 1995. It did, however, recognise the gravity of the situation of availability of water and fuel and decided to make these issues the core of its discussions at the 2007 World Agricultural Congress. The long-term effects of greenhouse gases on world climate and the environment, as also systems for disaster management, will figure on the Agenda of the Congress.

Ottawa blockade

Not far from Washington, in Ottawa, the capital of Canada, farmers from Ontario and Quebec rallied to blockade, on April 22, the petrol depots of Shell Canada, Esso and Petro-Canada, lining up in tractors. The demonstration was not massive by Indian standards. Some 200 men, women and children came in a hundred tractors and other transport vehicles. The blockade was not too harsh either; it started on the afternoon of April 22 and continued through the cold spring night.

The bulk delivery trucks were allowed to enter the depots empty but were blocked for an hour or two on their way out after filling up. The leader of the blockade, one Dwight Foster, who grows corn, soybean and wheat, had announced that "the siege will be lifted early in the morning of the 23rd and move on to the Prime Minister's residence at 24, Sussex Drive, to get the Prime Minister, Mr Stephen Harper, out of bed, nice and early, because he has a lot of work to do."

The police did not intervene at any stage of the proceedings. They did not arrest anybody nor did they seize any of the vehicles for illegal transport. They did not attempt a cane charge, or use tear-gas or open fire, though the blockade caused serious traffic disruption in the Capital city and threatened a gherao of the Prime Minister's residence.

Anger against US subsidies

The wrath of the farmers was directed against the Canadian Government's phlegmatic response to the US subsidies that upset the level playing field in the US-Canada trade.

The US spends $50-60 billion annually on agricultural subsidies, 90 per cent of which goes to the foodgrains and oilseeds sectors. This allows American farmers to export their produce at a price below the cost of production.

Last December, a countervailing duty was levied against US imports to counteract the dumping through government subsidies, estimated by the Canadian government at $75 a tonne. Last week, the Canadian International Trade Tribunal ruled that corn imports from the US did not constitute a threat to the Canadian corn industry and that the countervailing duty was uncalled for.

The farmers rejected outright the Government's offer of annual assistance of $500 million for five years as "little band-aid on an amputation". They are demanding $6 billion a year in a multi-year programme that will level the playing field for Canadian producers competing with US farmers. The actual dispensation may be much less if the produce prices rise, but a large safety net is necessary as an indication from the Government that it wants the farmers to continue production.

Canadian farmers' demands

The planting decisions will soon be complete and unless Ottawa makes a positive announcement that will assure profit to agriculturists, the farmers will be forced to stop their operations. The farmers are asking the government to support a Risk Management and Production Insurance Programme with immediate bridge financing to keep farmers in production.

The farmers' threat is entirely unveiled. The current situation threatens the continuation of Canadian food supply. There are farmers who are already six months behind in mortgage payments; and the banks are calling in the loans of many others.

The relatively modest demonstrations by the farmers provoked a massive public reaction. Apart from editorials and articles, a large number of letters to the editor poured in.

"Farms support the business network and the latter will sink if agriculture is affected," said one reader.

"Farms must compete like other firms," advised another.

The editor of Ottawa Citizen described the farmers as extortionists on tractors.

Though some were for and some against, the Canadian nation as a whole was more sensitive to 200 farmers' rasta roko than India has been to the suicides by over 20,000 farmers since 1995.

(The author is Founder, Shetkari Sanghatana and Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha). Feedback may be sent to sharad.mah@nic.in)

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