There are many misconceptions and myths regarding the farmers in India. Here I will try to bust some of them.
Myth#1. Farmers don't pay any tax.
Reality: Farmers, like anybody else, pay all the taxes (like GST for the items they buy, including the things used for farming), except Income Tax. However, 99% of the farmers (I mean the farmers who don't have any other source of income) don't make enough profit to pay income tax. There still are a few farmers who earn more. They fall in the following three categories:
1) Farmers who make large profit occasionally - like during the spike in the price of tomato/onion etc. In this case we don't hear about the losses they incurred in many previous years from the same crops (when the tomato was sold on the streets at one rupee a kilo). Most of the times farmers themselves are unwilling to disclose this bitter truth so that they can bask in the current glory!
2) Farmers who make honorable profit through cash crops (like arecanut, etc). Such farmers also go through the cycle of price crash once in a while but nevertheless they are mostly in the pink. But most of these crops take at least 10 years to reach this stage and they would have suffered significant losses till then and the later profits offset the losses carried forward. (Caveat: This is not applicable to those who simply inherited old farms where cash crops are already doing well). In any case, these profits don't turn out to be too significant to attract income tax.
3) Politicians who are in the guise of farmers and parked their money (black or white) in farm land. We have already heard about some famous politicians (one from Maharashtra and a few from Karnataka) who have disclosed crores of profits from agriculture. These politicians also run other businesses and have other sources of income and this income is routed through agriculture to avoid income tax.
Myth#2: Farming is highly subsidized and there are many monetarily beneficial schemes for them.
Reality: Partially true. Many farming tools, fartilizers, seeds and other farm inputs are available to farmers at subsidized prices. But there are three problems with this.
1) There is not unlimited fund for subsidies. I have had many instance where when I approached in April, I was told that the funds were not yet released, and when I approached again in June I was told that the funds were exhausted.
2) Most of the subsidies are meant to be "loopback system" for the politicians (in the guise of farmers) to take the money from the government. It is the politician who parks the money in farm land, announces the schemes for farmers and takes the money from the govt departments through these schemes using their connections. The really deserving farmer is left with taking loans from unscrupulous entities and suffer for years.
3) Corruption in the system is so high that even those who benefit from the schemes will get less than 25% of the actual amount they were supposed to get even after too much of running around.
Myth#3: Farmers get free electricity.
Reality: In most of the country, farmers get free electricity for pumpsets only. Otherwise for their domestic purpose they still pay for their usage. Even the free electricity for pumpsets comes with a lot of trouble, making it useless and sometimes dangerous. For example, there will not be any power during the entire day when the farmer is working and looking to water the plants. Many times this free power is given past midnight and the farmer has to be awake and get into the fields at these ghostly hours, exposing them to dangers like snakes, etc. Many farmers have found a workaround for this. They leave the pumpsets always open so that the fields get watered whenever there is power. This is leading to too much wastage of water and sometimes overwatering too. Many sensible farmers have started demanding "paid power" for their pumpsets so that they can get power when required and use it wisely.
Myth#4: Farmer is "Annadata" (Giver of Food) and therefore he/she should not sell "Anna" (i.e. food).
Reality: This very old and noble concept doesn't hold good in the new age. But still there are many people who are sticking to the same expectation when they visit a farm. They want to take away a varieties of things free of cost.
Interestingly, there are many farmers who strongly believe in this principle and practice it. Of course, there is nothing right or wrong about this and it is left to themselves as long as they can sustain it.
Myth#5: Farmer has a lot of free time.
Reality: Once again in the current age, farmer, apart from doing farming activities, will also have to take care of keeping the accounts, marketing, selling, processing/value addition, etc. and each of these is time-consuming and also costs money. Still many people simply drop in and expect them to be taken around the farm (and give freebies).
I am sure there could be some more such myths and I will keep on updating this as and when I come across them.
