Farmers stage protest against farm policies of Central, State governments in Belagavi

Farmers’ leader Kodihalli Chandrashekar speaking at a rally in front of the Suvarna Soudha in Belagavi on Friday.
| Photo Credit: P.K. BADIGER

Members of the Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha and Hasiru Sene held a protest in Belagavi on Friday against what they called anti-farmer polices of the Union and State governments.

Kodihalli Chandrashekar, leader who addressed the protesters at the Kondaskoppa protest site in front of the Suvarna Soudha, alleged that such policies were aimed at taking away lands from small farmers and to support large-scale corporate farming.

He said that the setting up of private APMCs amounted to betrayal of farmers as they were not getting remunerative prices. “Farmers are neither witnessing scientific weighing or transparent bidding of farm produce in private market yards. The current laws have enabled them. They need to be shut down”, he said.

Mr. Chandrashekar said that the Basavaraj Bommai government had amended farm and land revenue laws to enable to corporations buy thousands of acres of land without resorting to land acquisition. “This will make farmers vulnerable to panic selling,” he said. He said that the provisions allowing contract farming were being misused by companies that were promoting cultivation of oil palm and other non food crops in various districts. This is not reliable as the companies are refusing to pay the agreed amounts. That is also negatively affecting food security”, he said. He also cautioned of a State-wide protest against the Waqf Board for issuing notices of encroachment removal to farmers.

Later, a delegation of farmers met the Chief Minister and submitted a list of demands. They included clearing all dues of sugarcane farmers, payment of ₹25,000 per acre as compensation for heavy rain and drought, repeal of the 2020 Agriculture Act, expediting work on irrigation projects in the Krishna and Cauvery basin, starting works in the Mahadayi basin, legalising MSP and fixing of sugarcane yields of various factories, by the government. They urged the government to never take steps to privatise energy supply. The delegation also demanded abolition of the waqf board, and to regularise Bagair Hukum cultivation of lands by poor farmers.