Monday, June 12, 2017

How Do We Solve the Farmer Problem?

How do we solve the farmer problem? Any suggestions?

Let's at least first break the problem down using first principles, for a reality check:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2017/06/11/but-indias-farmers-should-go-bust-thats-how-economic-development-works/#62bfcf1f327e


But then what do we have to do to solve it? Any suggestions?

The main bottleneck is the inability to provide alternative employment in more value-added sectors, like manufacturing, etc, as other countries have done before us on their development climb. This is due to India's ugly labour laws. Maybe one solution could be to decentralize labour policies down to the local district level, including for land acquisition as well as minimum wage, in order to ensure maximum competition between geographic areas.

8 comments:

Pagan said...

A dollar of farm income is more valuable than 10 dollars of non-farm income. Only delusional idiots don't understand this.

SS said...

Spoken like a true Nehruvian retard. All the first world nations have gotten that way by having a massive manufacturing sector. Farm income did not make US win WWII, industrial power did.

san said...

Agriculture contributes 17.5% of India's GDP, while employing roughly half the population - this includes logging, fishing, etc. So half of the population are employed in low-productivity work. Use some basic logic, man - if those people could be employed in more productive work, they could be earning higher wages while contributing more GDP. IF someone is having to riot for money when most others aren't, then it's a good sign that they're in a line of work that can't sustain itself naturally. The more efficiently food is produced, then the lower its price will be, and the fewer workers will be needed to produce it. Farmers are a bunch of people trapped in an old profession, because newer professions aren't allowed to spread. Changing the laws would help that - more factories would then suck more of these farmers away from farming and into more productive work.

san said...

Another thing that might be tried are "grow-ops" or farming co-operatives, whereby farmers can pool/combine their efforts to produce more, as well as improve their logistics network to reduce waste through spoilage - this will help to increase supply and lower prices. In accomplishing this, they can then perhaps collectively negotiate a way to convert some of their excess capacity toward higher-end crops which earn more profit for them.

Pagan said...

Once again, this 'SS' fails to come up with anything useful to add to the discussion. The guy is sour, impaired and incapable.

SS said...

@Pagan,I am a lot more capable than you for sure. Go ride a bike and dream of a car-free world, it is the maximum you can do.

nizhal yoddha said...

i agree with you, pagan. SS has never contributed anything positive here, though i am sure he could. i post his interventions mostly for comic relief. what a splenetic character! the sad thing is that behind his pessimism and cynicism, he's probably a decent guy.

SS said...

@Rajeev,

What has Pagan contributed? He favors import quotas on cars, taxes on fossil fuels, and in general rails against coal, oil, gas and nuclear power. He is a Hindutva Socialist. Remember we live in a country where 50% do not have any access to electricity, where we are behind Stalinist Russia. With such piss-poor electricity generation capacity we cannot be choosy.

splenetic, moi? Maybe but mostly I am a realist. After having lived and worked in U.S. and India, I am shocked (not in a good way) at the lazy, passive, and fatalistic attitude of most Indians in general and Hindus in particular. We have become a race of passive tamasic losers who who betray our family and country at a drop of a hat.

Sorry to be so negative but we have a loooong way to go before Hindu Exceptionalism can be taken seriously.