How much do you get for 1kg of potatoes? Re 1. Do you know ho­w much a packet of potato chips costs? Rs 10. Do you know how many potatoes are used for that? Just half a potato.... That’s why UPA wanted FDI, so that you would get better prices for it.” This is what Rahul Gandhi is supposed to have told potato farmers in UP.

Rahul seems to know the prices of Potato chips pat and also knows how many potatoes are consumed in one packet of chips. I hope Rahul also knows the price of a potato vada and the amount of potatoes a poor family consumes.

Traditionally the Indian farmer has been at the mercy of the middleman once he harvests his crop. Farmers, mainly small and subsistence farmers, are unable to take their produce to markets wh­ere it would fetch them the best prices, not because we do not allow FDI in retail but because the government has failed to provide them with the basic infrastructure needed. In rural areas there is no rapid transport system. Vegetables and fruits, once harvested, must be sold off quickly before they ripen and rapidly rot. If the farmer is to hold out for better price he needs efficient storage facilities, co­ld storages. This would ne­gate the ability of the middleman to hold the farmer to ransom and to buy off his produce at ridiculous rates. Many a time the middleman is also a moneylender. The perennially cash-starved farmer pre-sells his produce even before it’s harvested because he needs money before he can sell his crop and earn it. Rural micro finance schemes are more heard of than implemented.

When we can’t provide sufficient electricity to our villages, where does the question of cold storages arise?

Subsistence farmers cannot afford to own or hire cold storages, they can’t afford to carry their produce to city markets in refrigerated transport, as the government does not provide them with such facilities. FCI godowns are an abomination, badly kept and vermin infested.

It has been more than 6 decades since we became independent; we have had the green revolution, the white revolution and numerous five year plans, which have been by and large agro-centric, favouring agriculture. And yet in the potato belt of UP, potatoes are left to rot in the fields for pigs to feast on, because they could not reach the markets in time.

Rahul should honestly ask himself, where did government after government fail? Isn’t it a shame that potatoes, which a farmer sells for Re 1 a kg, are sold to me in Mumbai at Rs 25 a kilo? Rahul’s father Rajiv, as PM, on one of his whirlwind trips to villages had stood outside a poor farmer’s hovel in a dusty village and had famously said, “When I send Re1 from Delhi for your benefit, only 25 paise reaches you.” Now Rahul has realised that while a packet of chips made from half a potato costs Rs10, the potato farmer gets only Re1 per kg.

In Jalagaon, Jain Agro has a mutually beneficial deal going with onion farmers. They are encouraged to do contract fa­rming; Jain Agro picks up their produce at a guaranteed price and allows them to sell part of their produce in the local market if they can get better prices. Jain Aggro processes the onions and exports them as dehydrated powder, flakes and granules. They process ma­ny fruits, mangoes, bana­nas, guavas and are one of the largest suppliers of mango pulp to multinational drink manufacturers. We have such home-grown solutions running successfully and benefiting the farmers immensely. Where the government fixes the support price of agricultural produce, farmers have to annually agitate to force the government to fix prices that are remunerative.

The government is under international pressure to all­ow FDI in retail, even US de­puty secretary of state William Burns, here to inaugurate a consulate, made a plea for FDI in retail. Such is the pressure being mounted. After being forced to retract its decision on 100 per cent FDI in multi-brand retail, in Parliament, the government is now trying to gain sympathy and support by pointing to the pli­ght of farmers. The plight of the farmers is largely because of the faulty policies of the government.

What assures the government that international retail chains with profit on their mi­nds will establish supply ch­ains that will look after the farmer’s profits? Will Rahul Gandhi guarantee the farmers of UP’s potato belt that Walmart and Tesco will go to their village to buy their potatoes and pay them at least Rs10 a kg before selling them in their super stores for Rs 25 a kg? There are multinationals ma­king potato chips, has Rahul bothered to ask them why they sell a packet of chips at Rs 10 utilising only half a potato, purchased from the farmers at Re 1 a kg?

I feel that the government owes an explanation to the farmers before enlisting their support in its desperation to throw open India’s markets to global giants.

(The writer is founder president, Mahatma Gandhi Foundation)