Caught in the crossfire is the small farmer

In another field a furlong away, Babbhai curses his son for returning from the marketing yard without selling the 35 bags of groundnut he took along.

It’s more or less the same story for most groundnut farmers with small holdings, be it Ganteshwar, Ishwaria, Vadu or other villages in the Saurashtra region. They seem to know little about strikes, marketyard politics, or the machinations of agents. Nor do they know which forces are working for or against them.

All they know is that they have worked this season in vain. The groundnut bags lie before them unsold, and spoiling over each passing day. Unless the harvest sells and soon farmers will not get the cash they badly need to clear loans, pay bills, prepare for the next season.

“Farm leaders tell us the price will go up once the curbs on movement of groundnut oil, against which they are protesting, is lifted. But a price hike of a few rupees per bag will not help small farmers, only the big farmers with huge stocks will benefit,” says Babbhai. The farmers aren’t sure what will happen. Says Bhuvabhai, a farmer of Vadu village, “We can’t wait for a price rise that might never happen while our stocks perish”.

In the Saurashtra region, when the price of groundnut oil goes up the price of groundnut (kernel) also goes up. Big farmers are holding up sales hoping the government will lift the restrictions, which will mean higher oil prices, and then a higher price for groundnut. Small farmers cannot afford to wait — they don’t have the storage facilities to bide time.

It is small farmers who are flooding the Gondal marketing yard — which has not joined the strike — with groundnut. Says Bapabhai, a farmer from Ganteshwar, “We are caught in the crossfire: we have to sometimes go by what leaders say as they help out in crisis. But this strike is only holding up auctions. And it is small farmers like me who are losing out”.

Already there is resentment among small farmers who lost transportation costs when their harvest came back from the closed yards. To add to that they are forced to distress-sell their stock to oil millers before it spoils. Obviously, they are getting lower prices.

And farmers know well that millers have nothing to lose. “If there is strike at the yard, they buy directly from farmers at a cheaper rate. And if the strike succeeds, they will gain as groundnut oil price will go up,” a farmer said.

So as the government dithers on a clearcut groundnut oil policy, and farmer leaders strike work, Kanjabhai’s debts will go up. And he will probably have to wait another year before getting his granddaughter married.