More participation for Indian Farmers

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Improving the position of farmers in the market. That was the goal of the congress that was organised by the East Indian farmer federation. Frank van Oorschot was invited by CIFA to be present at the congress and to open the congress with a speech. Mister van Oorschot also went into the fields and visit a sugar-cane fabric and farm.

Congress
The congress of the CIFA was in particularly meant to improve the position of farmers with political participation. An important part was the review of the height of the minimum price that the farmers and horticulturists should receive. This is established by the East Indian government, but there are lots of critics under East Indian farmers and horticulturists.

Frank van Oorschot, specialist on the area of International business within ZLTO, gave on behave of chairman Albert Jan Maat a speech at the congress. In this speech he told the visitors what kind of assignments the farmers worldwide have and that the primary sector has to organise itself. An example of this is the encouragement of own initiatives of farmer organisations like the CIFA. Van Oorschot thinks it’s necessary that the WTO (world trade organisation) looks at businesses that aren’t directly trade, but more like a social policy and a knowledge network for the farmers.

The forgotten group
According to Van Oorschot there’s a twofold in the Indian population. There’s one group that goes along with becoming worldwide. The second group lives at the countryside. “This group is quickly forgotten, but there are 600 million farmers that include this group”, tells van Oorschot. There’s been expected that the group will grow further from each other, participation of the farmers in the politics is a must.

Fieldvisit
After the congress Van Oorschot has visited a sugar-cane fabric and a farm. For Van Oorschot this was a very nice experience because he’s a farmer in Holland. “I saw a traditional, small scale transport from sugar-cane with help of a car”. “The car had a barcode, which is very unique in this country”. “The position of fish is very good in India”, is the opinion of Van Oorschot. The horticulturists have a hard job in front of them, they have to give good policy suggestions to the government.

Simone Weert
Agriterra news editor