Twelve delegates in the age group of 18 to 62 have already travelled a distance of 3,300 km on their bicycles. The team has met over one lakh farmers during its travels so far, which has taken it through 65 districts of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. The yatra will culminate on March 17.

“Our experiences with farmers across the country were heart rendering. It is true that India is the country of God. Some 40,000-50,000 farmers have already committed suicide. Had there been no God here, many more would have ended their lives long ago,” says Joshi.

“India’s economic development has largely been enhanced by the industrial, civil and construction sectors. In agriculture, and for farmers, development has been lop-sided. Rural marginal farmers are not represented in the GDP, and there is fear that they will not be represented in the future too,” he says.

Nisha Rathore, a sociologist who is part of the “yatra with a mission”, believes that moves like the recent loan waiver announced in the Union Budget for small and marginal farmers is mere eyewash. “Credit flow to small farmers has always been far below their needs. Widespread discontent among farmers has manifested itself in the form of mass voting against incumbent governments and also in individual acts of despair such as suicides, particularly in states like Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh,” says Rathore.

Joshi thinks Special Economic Zones are “another attack” on primary producers in India. What happened in Nandigram is “farmers’ resentment against such invading policies”: “It cannot be denied that the country’s economy can only be strengthened through industrialisation. But not at the cost of the fast depleting agrarian culture of the country.”

“India is primarily an agrarian society. But land under agriculture and productivity have fallen and now, we face the threat of food insecurity. Agriculture has always been considered a state issue even when the whole country is interdependent on it. We demand that agriculture be treated as a Central issue,” says Joshi.

Farmers told Joshi and his team they wanted a “Kisan Bank”, run in partnership with them, sharing profits as well as losses from the produce. Loan and interest recovery would be made through the sale of produce. The team is going to take out a report on demands that farmers put forward.

But the team itself had a few suggestions to make: an Agriculture Act on the lines of the Forest Act for fixing land for agricultural use; proper storage facilities for small and marginal farmers; price regulation to help farmers realise actual profits; and partnership in development as against compensations the farmers didn’t know how to utilise.

“Reported economic gains are not reaching down to most farmers in rural India. The benefits of development have reached only a few and the poverty and drudgery of Indian farmers remains intact,” says Joshi.