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Thiruvananthapuram , Dec. 28

THE All-India Kisan Sabha and the All-India Agricultural Workers' Union (AIAWU) are willing to partner anyone to fight the process of globalisation, according to Mr S. Ramachandran Pillai, President, All-India Kisan Sabha.

He made this remark while briefing presspersons on the proceedings of the second day of the two-day seminar on `Agrarian situation in India and alternative policies'.

Farm workers, ordinary peasants and rich farmers would have to form a partnership to take on the forces of globalisation, he said. However, he emphasised that landlords who do not have any direct contact with the land would not have any place in this struggle unless they were willing to stand up against globalisation.

India is moving towards a major crisis in the agricultural sector, he said. With the spread of globalisation, food grain availability has fallen and regional disparities have been accentuated, he added. The need of the hour is not privatisation of land holdings, but a determined effort by the Government to increase investment in the farm sector, he declared. The dominant mood among the 1000-plus delegates at the two-day conference, organised jointly by the All-India Kisan Sabha and the AIAWU, was a sense of deep concern at the impact of globalisation on the agricultural sector.

Addressing the delegates on the first day of the conference, leaders of the two organisations highlighted the need to form a broad alliance of farm workers and peasants to defeat the globalisation policies.

This theme was emphasised by Dr Prabhat Patnaik of the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), in his presentation on `The agrarian economy in the period of globalisation.'

Similarly, in his address, titled `Beyond the agrarian crisis: investment, employment and growth during the 1990s,' Dr C.P. Chandrashekar of the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, JNU, focused on the issue of growth in the Indian agricultural sector.

Dr Jayati Ghosh, of the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, JNU, Dr Abhijit Sen, also of JNU, and Dr Venkatesh Athreya of Bharatidasan University were among those who made presentations at the conference.

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