Who is sharad joshi

The present system prevents farmers from getting better prices, Ghanwat said. Now with the markets opening up, we hope newer traders will enter the trade. This will help fair competition. As a result of the changes, investments will be made in cold stores and warehouses in the rural areas, Ghanwat said. No popular government would ever try again to provide a free market to farmers, he said.

The group claims to stand politically to the left of centre. In its heyday, many senior leaders of the Sanghatana were elected to the Maharashtra Assembly. At present, the Sanghatana has zilla parishad members in various districts of Maharashtra. While the Sanghatana has supported the farm laws, it has also demanded that the ban on the export of onions be removed forthwith — and has threatened to pelt BJP MPs with onion bulbs if the central government did not accede to the demand.

RIP Sharad Joshi: 7 things the veteran farmer activist will be remembered for. In , Joshi founded the Swatantra Bharat Paksh party.

The party is allied with the BJP and is in favour of a separate Vidharbha state. He was the only MP in the Upper House who was against the bill seeking 33 per cent reservations for women in Parliament and state Assemblies. He could have retired with a comfortable pension.

He chucked his job, and invested most of his savings into a acre farm plot near Pune in He wanted to learn first-hand about rain-fed farming, his approach was scientific, and he kept meticulous accounts. He discovered that despite so-called state support, farming was just not remunerative.

There was thus a net negative subsidy. This was later confirmed by detailed analysis and calculation of the aggregate measure of support AMS , used in the negotiations leading up to the formation of the World Trade Organization. This meant lower remuneration to farmers by design. Hence inputs were subsidized. These were fertilizer, electricity, credit and water.

To this day we are struggling to get out of that subsidy maze. Since there are no quantity constraints, nor is the subsidy linked to poverty, it gets cornered by larger farmers. Even the minimum support price system tends to benefit those with a larger marketable surplus. Keeping meticulous accounts at his farm and understanding the markets, he realised within two years that farming was a losing proposition.

He also understood how it was the government's deliberate policy to keep farm prices depressed. This prompted him to set up the Shetkari Sangathana in in Chakan near Pune to demand remunerative prices for farm produce and access to markets and technology. In , onion prices had crashed in India and there was a government ban on the export of onions. Farmers began protests, with the first demonstrations at Chakan.

Joshi was arrested. By November , the farmers protests spread to Nasik. Joshi led the agitation, blocking road and rail, until the police arrested him again. Some farmers were killed. Except one day he had a visitor. Minoo Masani. Masani had been observing this agitation and gave moral support to the farmers. Fighting for fair remuneration The Shetkari Sangathana opposed farm subsidies but highlighted the fact that the Indian government practiced a negative subsidy — for every Rs a farmer spent he got back only Rs The Sangathana grew to a strong ten lakh membership across Maharashtra.

From onion to cotton to tobacco to sugarcane to paddy and wheat, the s saw farmers agitations across Maharashtra to Punjab and even to the Wagah border when farmers tried to cross over with their wheat to Pakistan.