THE UP government promises to make a policy under which farmers cannot be forced to part with their land. Any land acquisition can be done only with their consent.

We think this is a very good policy, because it does not have the coercive element in it. Farmers have after all voluntarily sold land to development projects across the country; and many of them have become lakhpatis and crorepatis (though there are green activists who lament that we do not know how prudently they have used those lakhs and crores). But the farmers who wish to continue farming can go on doing that. In Goa agricultural land is protected by law and cannot be sold for commercial purposes. Yet, all the development has taken place by removing agricultural lands from the purview of the law. The crux of the issue lies here: how to have development without damaging the ecology? Conversion of agricultural land for commercial or infrastructural purposes such as roads must take place, but not without weighing in the costs to the future of human society.