K.T. Gangadhar, leader of Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha, has said successive governments were framing agricultural policies to suit the loan policies of international financial agencies.
He spoke on the second day of Shivamogga district, Kannada Sahitya Sammelana in Shivamogga, on Friday. The government had been under pressure from the international financial institutes to frame agricultural policies so that they could borrow loans.
“The big investors are now interested in investing in food production, as innovation in other sectors has reached saturation. Hence, they want all of us to become consumers, not producers. They are introducing contract farming on a large scale so that small farmers give up agriculture,” he said.
Further, he said the government was engaged in evicting small farmers only to allow contract farming. “We need to understand the hidden strategies and oppose them for the survival of the agriculture sector,” he said.
G.K. Sathish, a lecturer, opined that farmers in the Malnad region were facing many problems with land holding. “The people who parted with their land for the power project had not got justice yet. They had been fighting for their rights. Similarly, the bagair hukum cultivators had been fighting to own land. The government should bring in a policy to allow cultivators to possess land up to three acres,” he said.
Kolae Rudrappa, president of the DVS Institutes of Education, and others were present.
