{"id":23595,"date":"2015-10-28T15:04:32","date_gmt":"2015-10-28T22:04:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/?p=23595"},"modified":"2015-10-28T15:08:03","modified_gmt":"2015-10-28T22:08:03","slug":"indian-sugar-program-helping-farmers-to-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/indian-sugar-program-helping-farmers-to-death\/","title":{"rendered":"Indian Sugar Program \u201cHelping\u201d Farmers to Death"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"sugar<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Chuck<\/a>(Chuck Muth, Citizen Outreach)<\/em> – If you think the U.S. sugar program is bad, you should take a look at the sugar industry mess in India.<\/p>\n

At least in the U.S. you don\u2019t have farmers committing suicide over government agricultural policies.<\/p>\n

According to a recent Business Standard <\/em>report, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is planning a ‘Raita Chaitanya Yatre’ (farmer’s rally) to \u201cpressure the state government to address problems being faced by farmers in the state and provide immediate help to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nalin Kumar Kateel MP said last month that the rally\u2019s purpose \u201cwas to wake the state government \u2018out of slumber\u2019 on the issues of farmers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMany farmers in the state,\u201d Kateel noted, \u201cespecially sugarcane farmers, have committed suicide in the last few months burdened with loans as their crops failed due to drought.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed, according to an October 18 article in The Hindu<\/em>, Maruti Manpade, president of the Karnataka Pranta Raitha Sangha (KRRS), a farmer\u2019s movement, said the government\u2019s importation of sugar \u201cwas one of the reasons for the suicide of sugarcane growers in the State.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile farmers are in distress following the crash in the price of sugar, the BJP\u2019s State unit is holding rallies against the Congress government,\u201d Manpade told the paper. \u201cInstead of playing petty politics and shedding crocodile tears for farmers, [the BJP should] do something to help the farmers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Manpade went on to accuse the government \u201cof not forming an alternative agriculture policy for helping farmers\u201d and \u201csaid that the visit of Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi to the State would not prevent farmers from committing suicide but a comprehensive alternative farming policy would.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of course, it\u2019s well-intentioned but ill-advised government programs designed to help farmers that are causing the problems in the first place.<\/p>\n

Which brings to mind something Ronald Reagan famously once said\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cThe nine most terrifying words in the English language are: I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When it comes to agricultural policies, the best way for the governments of both India and the United States to \u201chelp\u201d is to simply stop helping.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Mr. Muth is president of Citizen Outreach and the publisher of www.NevadaNewsandViews.com<\/a>. \u00a0He personally blogs at www.MuthsTruths.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Chuck Muth, Citizen Outreach) – If you think the U.S. sugar program is bad, you should take a look at the sugar industry mess in India. At least in the U.S. you don\u2019t have farmers committing suicide over government agricultural policies. According to a recent Business Standard report, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is planning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23596,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23595"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23595"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23599,"href":"https:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23595\/revisions\/23599"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nevadanewsandviews.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}