Thursday, February 4, 2010

Collective Action Sugarcane farmers of Chhaprauli Block, Baghpat, UP

As compared to a rate of Rs 280 per quintal in neighboring districts of Meerut and Muzzafarnagar, Baghpat district farmers are getting Rs 240 per quintal. So they formed a collective and pressed for revision of rates in their region as well. As a result the mill has discontinued operations.

Rather than being blackmailed by the mill, the farmers choose to travel around 100 Kms. to and fro to Meerut to sell their produce. Most of them overload their trolleys, transport it by tractors and this causes frequent accidents as well as huge fuel costs.

FOR HOW LONG CAN THEY SUSTAIN THIS COLLECTIVE ACTION AGAINST SUCH ARM TWISTING ???

2 comments:

PAWAN CHANDEL 30090 said...

any collective to continue and become successful requires to provide some benefits to participants. and looking to this case it seems that for the marginal benefit the farmers are paying much higher price so it may not be possible to continue it for long time and eventually the farmers will have to bow down in front of the demands of the mill and then they may not be in position to negotiation.
instead they should negotiate at this very point of time and try to find a solution of win-win type which is accepted to both of them.
it is not that i am under estimating the power of the collective action but there should be some rationale behind the collective action, just the collective action may not be enough to ensure success.

V S Khokhar said...

@ VALID POINT MADE PAWAN ,,
also to be considered here is the plight of the small farmer who doesnt own a tractor trolley and can turn into a defector pretty soon.. now in the starting the big farmers are helping them with their tractors but till when..