PM Modi calls for reversal of farmers’ sale and purchase modes

Prime Minister Narendra Modi (File)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday called for reversing the sale and purchase modes of farmers so that their income could be doubled by 2022. “Our farmers have several problems but if we notice one thing, it is that whatever farmers buy, they do it in retail and when he sells, he does it in wholesale. Can it be reversed? If he buys in wholesale and sells in retail, nobody will be able to loot him. The middlemen will not be able to eat into his profit,” the PM said.

He made the remarks while addressing a cooperatives’ conference on the birth centenary of Lakshmanrao Inamdar who had founded the RSS’s cooperative wing Sahakar Bharti and had mentored Modi in his early years in the RSS in Gujarat.

Modi asked the conference to think during the daylong deliberations on how to make progress in agriculture through cooperatives and how farmers’ income can be doubled by 2022 and what needed to be done so that the agriculture sector and rural life can be in sync with modern India.

Underlining the need to inspire rural youths towards a cooperative movement, the PM also gave the example of dairies and asked whether a cooperative movement in this line can be created.