తెలుగు రైతు

తెలుగు రైతుల కోసం ఓ వెబ్ సైట్

A farmer is a person who is engaged in agriculture, raising living organisms for food or raw materials. This is a way of life that had long been the dominant occupation of human beings since the dawn of civilization. Related, but much different, is gardening.

The term farmer usually applies to a person who grows field crops, and/or manages orchards or vineyards, or raises livestock or poultry. Their products are usually sold in a market or, in a subsistence economy, consumed by the family or pooled by the community.

In some countries a farmer engaged in raising horses, cattle, or sheep for meat is usually referred to as a rancher (US), grazier (Australia) or stockman. Special terms also apply to other people who husband domesticated animals, namely shepherd for sheep farmers and goatherd for goat farmers. These terms almost always refer to livestock operations that use unmanaged rangeland and must import most, if not all, supplemental feed. When livestock are raised on well-managed pastureland and/or most silage is grown on-site, most practitioners refer to themselves as farmers. The term dairy farmer is applied to those engaged milk production. A poultry farmer is one who concentrates on raising chickens, turkeys, domesticated ducks and geese, or is involved in egg production. A person who raises a variety of vegetables for market may be called a truck farmer or market gardener.

In the context of developing nations or other pre-industrial cultures, most farmers practice a meager subsistence agriculture – a simple organic farming system employing crop rotation, slash and burn, or other techniques to maximize efficiency while meeting the needs of the household or community, using saved seed which is native to the ecoregion. In developed nations however, a person using such techniques on small patches of land might be called a gardener and be considered a hobbyist. Alternatively, one may be driven into such methods by poverty or, ironically--against the background of large-scale agribusiness--may become an organic farmer growing for discerning consumers in the local food market. Historically, one subsisting in this way may have been known as a peasant.

In developed nations, a farmer (as a profession) is usually defined as someone with an ownership interest in crops or livestock, and who provides land or management in their production. Those who provide only labor are most often called farmhands. Alternatively, growers who manage farmland for an absentee landowner, sharing the harvest (or its profits) are known as sharecroppers or sharefarmers. In the context of agribusiness, a farmer can be almost anyone – and can legally qualify under agricultural policy for various subsidies, incentives, and tax relief.

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Why are Indian farmers killing themselves?

Global Subsidies Initiative (GSI), part of the Geneva-based International Institute for Sustainable Development, the key to this question is shut in the rich countries' blue and green boxes (the blue box subsidies and the green box subsidies).

While the former are the direct subsidies to farmers, the latter come in the form of assistance under heads like technology, conservation and so on.

But not any more, says the GSI, which is launching a multi-level attack against farm subsidies. "Good or bad, we should know when they (subsidies) exist," says Damon Dunbar of the organisation.

Launched a year ago, this non-profit initiative is keeping an eye on how subsidies undermine efforts to put the world economy on a path toward sustainable development.

Its spokesperson Javed Ahmed says the organisation is an honest broker of information on subsidies. The idea is to keep it all in the open so that people in the countries that are most affected know the implications.

The general sentiment in GSI is despair at the lack of initiative in countries like India which are most affected by global farm subsidies. Even the media here is silent, despite the obvious repercussions, says Ahmed.

As one of its admirers, Vijay Jawandhia, a wealthy cotton farmer from Wardha says, "Who is afraid of free trade. Not us. But let it be fair," referring to the Doha Round of talks at the WTO, where India has been asked by the rich countries to lower subsidies to farmers.

"In America, in 1998, cotton prices fell from $1 to 38 cents for a pound of cotton but not a single US farmer committed suicide. Why?" he asks.

The GSI has an answer. The US's 25,000 cotton farmers get $3.7 billion in subsidies for growing cotton worth that amount. The exporters of this cotton are rewarded with about $180 million for buying the cotton.

With trade liberalised since the world adopted the WTO norms, the cotton prices have sunk low due to the cheap subsidised cotton from the US. This, it says, it the cause of the distress among farmers in the developing world.

About the subsidies in India, Jawandhia says, "Take away all our subsidies here. These don't benefit the small farmer anyway."

The small farmer in the US would agree with him, for there too, the subsidies are known to help large farmers. In the UK, for example, a query under the right to information revealed that the Queen of England was one of the top beneficiaries of farm subsidies.

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Andhra Pradesh farmers seek hike in MSP of paddy

Paddy growers in Andhra Pradesh have decided to demand an increase in the minimum support price (MSP) for paddy to Rs 1,400 per quintal from the current interim MSP of Rs 850 per quintal.

Though the government has already enhanced the MSP for paddy to Rs 850 per quintal, the farmers are now demanding it to be raised to Rs 1,400 per quintal as proposed by the MS Swaminathan Committee.