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To Mahatma Gandhi, the key to India’s progress was the development of its villages. In his unified vision, education, agriculture, village industry, social reform all came together to provide the basis for a vibrant rural society free from exploitation and linked to the urban centres as equals. Our planning incorporates this basic insight.
86.2% of all farmers in India are small and marginal farmers
13.2% of all farmers in India are medium and semi-medium farmers
As per a Lok Sabha Secretariat Reference Note from July 2017, farmers with landholdings lesser than 0.01 hectare, could avail only 15% of their outstanding loans via the institutional credit.
Whereas loans via the Institutional Credit accounted 79% of the outstanding loans for farmers with landholdings above 10 hectares.
When a marginal and/or small and marginal farmer and/or small farmer
(referred to as farmer) requires credit for agricultural produce, credit from non-institutional sources took a lion’s share among their outstanding loans.
The private lenders constituted a majority among the non-institutional sources of credit for marginal, small and marginal and small farmers.
Most of the times these private lenders turned out to be the Middle-men or Arhtiyas in the ecosystem of buying and selling the Agricultural produce. They buy the Agricultural products from marginal, small and marginal and small farmers at the Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) mandis — the only place where farmers can sell their Agricultural produce (other than the FCI go downs), at minimal prices and sell this products at high prices.
The Arthiyas, who happen to be the private lenders for farmers, too, lend money to farmers for growing their agricultural produce, pressurize them to sell their produce to Arthiyas at minimal prices at APMC Mandis, put farmers at loss and lend money again to these farmers (as farmers cannot finance growing their produce the next time given the loss suffered loss at the hands of Arthiyas previously) to grow their agricultural produce which Arthiyas buy at minimal prices again, again putting the farmers at loss.
The marginal, small and marginal, and small farmers (mentioned above as farmers) get trapped inside a vicious cycle of debts at the hands of the private lenders this way.
These private lenders also don the hat of farmers with large size landholdings, (big farmers), majority of whom hail from dominant social classes in India.
The big farmers exploited the marginal, small and marginal farmers and small farmers (also referred to as farmers in this article) using not just their financial strength but also the dominant positions they hold in the social hierarchy.
To add to the plight of marginal, small and marginal and small farmers, were the laws that force the above-mentioned category of farmers to sell their produce only at the APMC Mandis to the Arthiyas.
The reason behind why the former sell their produce at dirt-cheap prices to Arthiyas is the lack of opportunity to sell at markets other than the APMC Mandis and the FCI.
Every word of what I have written above is not unread of or unseen by my readers.
Had the farmers had the opportunity to sell their produce to markets other than the APMC Mandis and the FCI, with buyers approaching the farmers at their farmlands, the farmers stood a good chance to sell produce at profitable prices, without being exploited by Arthiyas.
This would have liberated the farmers not just from financial distress but also could have elevated their status in the social hierarchy of India.
The buyers who would approach farmers at their farmlands, had a very good possibility of making the local administration build up a good infrastructure for areas with farms that would have included roads to and from farms, construction of storage houses and go downs, and, an efficient supply chain facilitating mobilization of farm produce to the last mile buyer/customer.
This would have encouraged people residing in areas of farming activities to build rural enterprises, too.
There is no denying the fact that rural enterprises possess the potential to make villages and their residents prosperous.
The prosperity in the rural areas of India would have contributed a great deal in not just the overall prosperity of the nation but also the villagers who had suffered at the hands of poverty for decades.
The provision of contract farming would have exposed the marginal, small and marginal, and small farmers to better technological intervention as well.
The law that facilitates construction of go downs, and storage of agricultural produce at go downs would have allowed the farmers to store their foods in case they did not get good prices for their produce and selling them at a time that favors good prices.
The Farm Laws brought in by the Modi Government had the potential to turn India into the prosperous nation it used to be before the British colonized our nation.
It was an opportunity that the farmers could not capitalize upon due to the misinformation campaign at the hands of a few political parties that had vested interests in opposition of emancipation from the clutches of poverty, an incredibly large number of farmers suffered with.
- TheOptimisticJournalist
THEOPTIMISTICJOURNALIST 
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