Veteran farmer’s leader and founder of Shetkari Sanghatana Sharad Joshi has passed away at the age of 81. Joshi who was ailing for some days was discharged from a city hospital earlier this month. Born in Satara, Joshi completed his education in Mumbai and had worked as a lecturer in Economics in Pune University. He had also worked with the Indian Postal Services and United Nations before starting the pan Maharashtra farmer’s organisation called Shetkari Sanghatana. Between 2004 and 2010 he was a Rajya Sabha member also.

At a time when the political dialogue was pro-middle class Joshi started his farmer’s movement to ensure proper pricing of farm goods. His movement took up the cause of onion farmers, cotton farmers and the cause of cane farmers across the state. Joshi was the first one to link production cost to the price of agricultural produce and agitate for better price.

Swambhimani Paksha MP Raju Shetti, farmer leader Raghunath Patil were originally from Joshi’s outfit. He was also invited by the then prime minister VP Singh to frame a farmer’s policy which was not accepted. Well before the acceptance of BT Cotton and other modern technologies, Joshi has been a strong supporter of such techniques.