I am glad that at last someone in our political circles has written about the real issues Indian agriculture faces (“We need to talk about rural distress”, September 14).
As an agrarian country with huge tracts of arable land, India should strive to modernise and incentivise the agriculture sector. Instead, and tragically, we seem to be doing the opposite.
Loan waivers are used as election sops and not as a measure to provide genuine relief to farmers.
A loan waiver should be an exception and not the rule. It is frightening to see the number of farmers abandoning agriculture. This, along with shrinking arable land due to urbanisation and dwindling water resources will result in a serious food shortage.
Ravi Aravelli,
Cheepurupalli, Andhra Pradesh