Members of the forum on Wednesday held a meeting in Delhi where farmer leaders raised issues before some of the MPs who had attended the meet.

Farmers across the country have decided to reach out to the members of Parliament through an umbrella organisation, Parliament Members Farmers Forum (PMFF), to raise their demands.

The increasing unrest among farmers for loan waiver, demand for better prices for farm produce, rising number of farmers’ suicide and the need to increase farm incomes have brought several farmers’ associations together on a common platform, Rampal Jaat of the Kisan Mahapanchayat Association of Rajasthan said.

Initiated by the Rashtriya Kisan Mahasangh, Kisan Mahapanchayat Association, Bharatiya Kisan Union and the Consortium of Indian Farmers (CIFA), the forum for the first time aims to highlight issues related to farmers through their local MPs in the Parliament.

Members of the forum on Wednesday held a meeting in Delhi where farmer leaders raised issues before some of the MPs who had attended the meet.

“Farmers do not have a strong lobby in the Parliament and therefore issues related to this sector are not given due importance. Also farmers themselves are a scattered lot due to language and ideological barriers. In the last six months, efforts have been taken to bring farmer organisations under one forum and present issues in a united manner,” Chengel Reddy, adviser, CIFA said.

“This is just the first meet. One needs to understand that for the the first time, farmers from different states have come together to raise common issues and initiate common programmes. The agitation programme is still a long way off. This is just the start,” he said.

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All these associations are seeking loan waiver from the Centre for farmers across the country due to indebtedness arising out of government policies, natural calamities, market fluctuation and institutional failure, Shiv Kumar Sharma, national president, Rashtriya Kisan Mahasangh, said.

According to an NFFO report, only 6% farmers benefit from MSP (minimum support price) and the parameters that decide MSP need to be reviewed. There is a need to increase farm income, he said. Reddy said that the forum will meet the chairman of CACP on Thursday. And once the feedback from the first meet is collated, the forum will decide the way forward.

On Tuesday, the Uttar Pradesh government of Yogi Adityanath decided to waive farm loans totalling `36,369 crore, benefiting 21.5 million small and marginal farmers, in line with an electoral promise by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which rules Maharashtra too as an alliance partner of the Shiv Sena.

Under pressure from the opposition as well as ally Shiv Sena to declare a farm loan waiver, Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis said on Wednesday that the state government was studying the Uttar Pradesh model and was favourably disposed towards the demand. Fadnavis said the state government had asked the Centre to help, but added that Maharashtra “would see how to go about this decision on its own” if no help was forthcoming.

The Maharashtra government has estimated the cost of a crop loan waiver in the state at nearly `30,500 crore. Of the 13.6 million farmers in Maharashtra, nearly 78% are small and marginal farmers holding less than 2 hectares of land. Significantly, Madras High Court has asked the Tamil Nadu government to waive off all farm loans.

Farm loan waiver was one of the biggest pre-poll promises that the Bharatiya Janata Party had made to the electorate of Uttar Pradesh. In Maharashtra, the opposition Congress and Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), joined by the Shiv Sena, have been demanding a similar waiver for Maharashtra’s farmers.