For weeks, Karan Singh camped in a makeshift tent some 180 miles from India’s capital, New Delhi.
Singh and five other farmers from his village in the western state of Punjab have been living on their own supplies, including a gas cylinder and raw produce they packed from their farms when they drove down in a tractor to join thousands more in a mounting campaign to pressure the government to raise crop prices.
“I am drowning in debt,” said Singh, who mainly farms wheat and rice on his 10-acre plot of land. “We are utilizing our farms as much as we can. There’s no lack of production, but we are not able to get any fair price for it.”
Tractors have been rolling down highways not just in India but across Europe — where issues including the impact of Russia’s war in Ukraine, climate change and efforts to fight it as well as rising competition have driven angry farmers to the streets of Paris, Brussels and beyond.
While the specific factors fueling the anger vary from country to country, the result is largely the same: Farmers say governments need to take drastic action if their way of life is to survive. And the timing is no coincidence, experts say, with protesters seeking favorable policies in a year with a record number of elections around the globe.
“Most farmers are not making a profit. Most of them are scraping by and doing backbreaking work most city people don’t understand,” said Chris Hegadorn, a former U.S. diplomat and an adjunct professor of food politics at Sciences Po in Paris.
“Election cycles allow them to press their case publicly,” Hegadorn said.
Singh and thousands of farmers in northern India began marching to the capital earlier this year demanding higher prices for their crops, among other debt relief measures. They were met with tear gas, rubber bullets, internet blackouts and police batons and blocked from the capital for weeks until last Thursday when they were allowed to rally there.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his…
Read the full article here
