Farmers in India unite against unjust laws
The new laws dictated by the Modi government are identical to the early 1950 laws here in the US that broke the New Deal’s guarantee to family farmers of parity prices. The parity legislation aimed to heal the destruction of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl by stabilizing rural communities and allowing US farmers to produce healthy food sustainably which is what any democratic government would want for its citizens and future generations. The Indian farmers are absolutely correct in their analysis of the consequences of this new legislation They know that lower prices mean lower incomes that will drive farmers off the land, while bigger farms struggle to survive the incessant pressure of even lower prices, thus compromising their traditional methods that are more sustainable and less fossil fuel-intensive than any “modern” methods promoted by transnational agribusiness. . This new legislation is a demand from the Modi government on behalf of transnational corporation’s profit motive to “Get big or get out.”
The Modi government tells the Indian farmers their farms are obviously not big enough and they should follow the path of US agriculture. Really? Here in the US family farms disappear only to be replaced by giant farms, only to be replaced farms that are even more giant, and livestock are raised where corporations now own the livestock in giant inhumane confinements. US agriculture is now totally dependent on chemical pesticides, antibiotics, and the abuse of soil and animals. Farmer decisions will soon be replaced by Bill Gates’ hidden cyberspace artificial intelligence so our food and agriculture system will be devoid of any democratic or human values.
We citizens of the US see the calamitous future of corporate agriculture worldwide, because we in the US live today with the destructive consequences of the agribusiness model—the illusions and the pollutions of an undemocratic agricultural system that serves only the profits of corporations at the expense of family farmers, consumers, and the planet’s climate and ecosphere.
We have no choice but to stand in solidarity with the farmers of India and commit ourselves to to their success and a restoration of a sustainable, democratic family farm system here in the US and around the world.