Distress of farmers is hard to digest.

"Agriculture forms the problematic nucleus of the macroeconomic knot which ties us up," wrote I Rajaraman. "It called out for attention even before the pressing necessity of having to cope with a 10-day farmers' agitation starting 1 June." Farmers are demanding "a blanket waiver of farm loans, minimum support price (MSP) for farm produce and rate for milk of Rs 50 per litre, among other things". The humiliation of near famine in the sixties and having to beg the US for assistance under the PL 480 program still haunts the Indian establishment. "Cereal anxiety led the Centre to offer minimum support prices for the major cereals, which distorted cropping patterns into the 'cerealization' of agriculture, as it is called." Cereal production has increased from 80 million tonnes in 1966 to over 295 million tonnes in 2014. However, at 305.4 million tonnes last year, horticulture has overtaken cereal production. Fruits and vegetables are grown in "less than 5% of the country's gross cropped area, compared to over 63% of the area used to grow foodgrains". Trouble is, when there is a bumper crop prices crash and farmers make huge losses. "When the price of onions in Madhya Pradesh crashed at the time of the rabi harvest in 2017 to 50 paise per kg, there were farmer riots, which were quelled by police firing." Governments, center and states, rush to announce MSPs. "The whole picture is muddied by the fact that the open-ended commitment to absorb all produce at the announced price, implicit in an MSP, is most usually not honoured, on account of either fiscal or warehousing limits." Rate of growth of rural wages is the lowest in 3 years, leading to rural distress and anger. What is the solution? Politicians love throwing handouts. States provide free electricity to farmers, which leads to ground water depletion and a "build-up of power sector debt and default to the banking sector". Banks maybe forced to write off $38 billion, or Rs 2.5 trillion, in bad loans to the power sector, out of a total debt of $178 billion or Rs 11.7 trillion. Despite connecting every village to the electricity grid demand for individual connections is very low because of irregular supply and standing charges. Farmers have to sell their produce to Agricultural Produce Market Committees, known as 'mandis', which put them at the mercy of unscrupulous traders. Agriculture contributes 17-18% of GDP, although it employs over 50% of the workforce of the nation. Unless rural distress is mitigated India will remain a poor country. Perhaps, the answer lies in allowing farmers to sell where they want, even export their produce if they can find buyers. Trouble is, politicians want to control availability of food because high prices cost elections. Easier to throw handouts while making money out of mandis.