knowing your community farmer gives us the value of the food that is served in our plate three times a day

1. સગ્ગો ભાઈ – समुदाय का ककसान – Know your Farmer
Today we call farmer as our અન્નદાતા, to say in English giver of food. We very casually mention
about the plight he lives in but we strongly refuse to pay him correctly for the food he gives us.
Government gives many freebies to him, financial subsidies, knowledge and institutional support,
distribution of information, seeds bank, knowledge centers, Krishi Vikas Kendra (KVK’s), crop
cover, Cooperative Markets (Sahakari Mandies) etc.
There are many food producers’ organizations (FPO’s) who manage to generate profit by
procuring, processing, marketing, branding and selling the produce or manufactured goods by such
group of farmers. But this success stories are few and scattered across India. Today’s government
may it be a double or single engine governments…talks and takes steps to exponentially increase
the farmers’ income.
But as it was true to getting our freedom from English people only when it turned to be a mass
movement and also unfolding of certain favorable circumstances, financial freedom and complete
transformation of the farming community too will depend on chain of steps and knowing our own
farmer.
By this I mean, that each family i.e. Mother, father, son and daughter knows his/her farmer who
supplies the grains, pulses, condiments, oil, vegetables, milk and milk products etc on a daily
basis. His name, his 7/12, his soil report, his mode of irrigation, his use and type of seed, details
of tillage, his consumption of fertilizers and pesticides, the primary rate at which his produce was
sold, his family members details as like how much he has studied? How many children he has?
How many hours of toil he is doing daily under the sun? And so on.
I think this is as important as we know about our real brother (સગ્ગો ભાઈ) because it gives us the
value of the food that is served in our plate three times a day. These processes of introduction of
each other will make an unbreakable bond between the community and their farmer which will be
the foundation of trust and friendship, a more humane approach than just knowing the MRP.