Bottom-up approach to reforms need of hour: farmer rights activist

It is time the growers were given their due, says Kuruganti Kavitha

Sustainable livelihood for farmers should the focal point of reforms in the agriculture sector, said farmer rights activist Kuruganti Kavitha.

The agriculture sector certainly needs reforms that are country-specific to ensure a decent return for the growers, who now find the going tough and end up displaced from agriculture, but not getting absorbed either in the industry or service sectors in the absence of adequate job opportunities at a time when the size of landholdings is shrinking at an alarming rate, feels the founder convenor of Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture. As a result, the growers are reduced to mere farm labourers, she observed in a conversation with The Hindu.

Advocating bottom-up strategy as against the top-down approach mooted by the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government at the Centre through the three controversial farm laws, she says policy makers should take note of diversity, the main character of the farm sector, including production systems and that of markets, and evolve farmer-centric policies to ensure a dignified livelihoods for not just farmers but also for a large number of farm workers, a majority of them women and tenants who till the land.