Framing farmers

How to kill the farmer with double speak!
Absolutely bizarre and inexplicable actions by policy makers in India are nothing new. Nor is their penchant for double speak and double standards. Add one more to this ignominious list-the recent decision to import millions of tons of wheat to ‘help the Indian farmer’. Quite frankly, that is akin to UP Chief Minister peremptorily shutting down Reliance Fresh outlets in the state to lend a helping hand to Mukesh Ambani. Both actions defy logic, and both make a mockery of the stated objective of the UPA government and of Mayawati of helping the poor Indian farmer earn a better and more dignified livelihood. Elementary economics states that prices have a tendency to fall when supply increases in the market place. So if the government places contracts with multinational food companies like Cargill to import as much as 5 million tonnes of wheat around the time the Kharif season domestic output is coming out of the farms, common sense states that the farmer will be the loser since there will be a downward pressure on prices.

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Source : IIPM Editorial, 2007

An IIPM and Professor Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist) Initiative