The challenge of the plenty!

Every time I look at the papaya plants in our garden flowering to produce the fruits, I feel a  sense off excitement. The fruit bearing is the beginning of another plant cycle in nature. 

What if there are too many fruits! Papaya fruits in the market do not fetch the farmer anything worth the effort. 

I had a disturbing experience yesterday. As our gardener did not visit the garden for a week due to incessant rain, he gathered 12 bunches of banana yesterday. Usually we get a bunch or two in week, which is enough for us and our domestic helpers. 

I set out packing the boot of the car with all the bunches of banana and went from shop to shop in the hope of selling them. I was offered 25 percent of the selling price. That was shocking. Finally one shop keeper offered fifty percent of the selling price for three bunches. Another shop keeper offered to take the remaining bunches with an offer of differed payment at about 30 percent of the selling price. This gave me  sense of an ordeal that farmers go thorough. A farmer is not a winner !

The prices drop significantly if the there is plenty of produce in the market. 

Out of curiosity, I went to a Farmer's market where farmers bring their produce and auction their products. Having paid the commission to the auctioneers, and the market managers, the farmer goes back home disappointed. 

The market economy is conditioned by the influence of the large dealers, who control the economy and selling and buying prices.

This is not the society I grew up. There was regard for farmers and farm produce. The farmers received support for their efforts, as they were seen as the 'providers' for rest of us.

Now the farmers are seen to be people to be exploited for profits, that too for a few who have the right connections to control. 

Ours since independence in 1947 was a democratic socialistic country, where equality of opportunities remained spread across all strata of society. Today, it is a society with a pyramid structure, where those on the top have the larger portion of the cake. The trickle down effect of a capitalist economy is hardly fed at the bottom. 

I agonise over how the Church watching all the inequalities is largely silent and ineffective. If there is a time to act it is now as the civil society is in distress because there is a lack of moral and righteous leadership at all levels!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)