FATEHPUR, India (AP) – Ram Singh Patel’s day begins at 6 a.m. as he enters his hidden farmland near a railway line. He works for hours on the farm, where he grows hot peppers, onions, garlic, tomatoes and papaya. Sometimes his wife, two sons and two daughters join him to help or dine with him.
Once at home after sunset, he packs the crops grown in jute bags and cardboard boxes, ready to be driven by a trailer to a nearby wholesale market where the products are sold.
This is the daily life of Patel, a 55-year-old generational farmer in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Life is laborious and repetitive, but it is one of an unknown hero who, like millions of other small farmers, grows grain to feed India’s ever-growing population of more than 1.3 billion euros.
But lately, Patel has been a worried man. His earnings began to decline. His children do not want to work on the farm. And he fears that the new agricultural laws introduced by the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi will favor large corporations that will lower prices and make family-owned farms unviable, eventually leaving millions like him without land.
“Farmers will survive this attack by any means,” said Patel, who supports Modi but opposes the new laws. “But future generations will not have food because there will be no one to grow grain. What will the prime minister eat then? “
Fabulous farmers in India, often called “annadatta” or “suppliers”, have long been seen as the heart and soul of a country where the agricultural industry supports more than half of the people. But farmers have seen their economic influence dwindle over the past three decades. Once a third of India’s gross domestic product, they now account for only 15% of the country’s $ 2.9 trillion economy.
The new laws that have provoked widespread anger among farmers are their concerns. Tens of thousands besieged New Delhi, the capital, for nearly a month and scattered food and fuel for weeks. They threatened not to leave until their demands for the abolition of the laws were met.
The government says the new laws provide for much-needed reform of the agricultural sector. He tried to calm the angry farmers, but several rounds of talks to try to get them to end the protests failed.
Many of the protesting farmers come from the northern states of Punjab and Haryana, two of India’s largest agricultural states. But the rumors are now starting to grow in other states as well.
“Modi’s government is for the rich,” Patel said. “His government is imposing these laws on us when we haven’t even demanded them.”
The laws have exacerbated existing resentment among farmers, who often complain that they are ignored by the government.
“The general public is against these laws,” Patel said. “I don’t understand why the prime minister doesn’t listen to them.”