Re: MNCs Sucking up India's IQ - Tom Friedman

One of the issues that just came to my mind is the natural calmities. All
these farmers invest everything that they have got just to realize that a
storm has wiped out everything. I think the answer to that should be
insurance. If the corporate farms can get an insurance company to cover for
them, then that will be an added advantage in selling the corporate farming
idea to the land owners. So, the insteresting selling point will be that
they will be gauranteed to get "some" return on investment and an extra
profits if everything goes fine. This might make people think into giving
their lands for corporate farming. Just a thought...

>From: sagar yerramsetti <sagar_ytk@yahoo.com>
>Reply-To: AndhraOne@googlegroups.com
>To: AndhraOne@googlegroups.com
>Subject: Re: MNCs Sucking up India's IQ - Tom Friedman
>Date: Thu, 5 Jan 2006 20:52:07 -0800 (PST)
>
>
>I liked that "Chambers of Farming" idea, which is
>similar to the co-operative farming suggestion, I made
>in my response. Whatever name we give it that does
>not matter but there should be some process or
>organization that could act on behalf of the farmers
>in each village. Taking advantage of the mechnization
>suggested by Manjusha is good but it is possible with
>bigger land holdings. In many cases most of our land
>holdings are very fragmented. If we try to integrate
>the small land holdings held by many small/medium
>farmers together, there comes the important issue
>Chandu raised - emotional attachment to the land,
>which may be the stumbling blcok for the collective
>farming either through a Village Chamber of Farming or
>Farming Co-operative Society. We cannot coerce this
>new structure on the farmers against their will to
>hold on to their small piece of land holdings. The
>best way is to buy in their willing support.
>
>With the help of the Govt, how about we take a
>moderately educated but a small village as a model in
>each of our districts and try to influence the farmers
>there to join the Chamber as members. The members
>elect a small admin group to oversee the day-day to
>functions of the Chamber. With the help of the members
>and an Agricultural expert attached to the Chamber,
>they can decide the best crops, seeds, fertilizers,
>tools, technology, mechanization appropriate for a
>particular region/area in the village keeping in mind
>the soil composition, water availability, operating
>costs and productivity upon harvesting. Initially,
>the Govt. may help the Chamber to stabilize with some
>incentives. The returns would be distributed
>according to the stake of the farmer (proportion to
>their land holding). Once these model villages
>demonstrate how productive and successful of the
>co-operative farming, other villages may follow
>suit....just a thought...may be someone could
>elaborate.
>
>Thanks,
>Sagar Yerramsetti.
>
>
>--- Chandu Sambasiva Rao <srchandu@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >
> > I like the idea of "Chambers of Farming". Some thing
> > got into my mind
> > and I can't get over it. (Should I try?) Instead of
> > Govt taking the
> > lead and forming a politically charged bodies to
> > start with, can we
> > encourage "Public Private Partnerships" here too?
> > Can every chamber be
> > a govt. partner but independent for all other
> > reasons? Can they be part
> > of a self governing echo systems?
> >
> > Another observation that I am interested in is,
> > having smaller chunks
> > of land may not be very suitable to apply and take
> > advantage of latest
> > farm technologies, . But in India, like in any other
> > country, land
> > ownership is more emotional than any other type of
> > property. How we get
> > our farmers to take advantage of modern tools and
> > techniques that are
> > so easily available to corporate farms?
> >
> > Can we encourage "Corporate Farms - Indian Style" at
> > village level,
> > where participating Farmers are stakeholders and no
> > one else. Their
> > stake is determined by the land they contribute to
> > the "larger-farm"?
> >
> > Do you think this will fly? What happens to
> > individual control and
> > pride? What else can plague such a seemingly benign
> > strategy? What safe
> > guards are needed?
> >
> > Regards,
> > Chandu
> >
> >
>
>
>Thanks,
>Sagar Yerramsetti.
>
>
>
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