FARM LAWS-WHY GOVERNMENT IS NOT LISTENING TO FARMERS?
Thousand of words have been written in favour and in against these three farm laws:-
- · The Farmers Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020,
- · The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020, and
- · The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020.
These laws were brought as an ordinance and then passed by the Parliament and enacted into laws. These three farm laws have been projected by the Centre as a game-changer that will leash a series of major reforms that will remove the dominance of middlemen (Artiyas) and allow farmers to sell their produce anywhere in the country. Before these laws, the agriculture produce trade was done under Agricultural Produce Market (Regulation) Committee Acts (APMC acts), enacted by different state governments.
However, the different protesting farm unions expressed their strong opposition stating that no matter how
good or lucrative these news laws look, but eventually, they would lead to the elimination of the MSP and Mandi system and farmers will be at the mercy of big corporate (Ambani/Adani as they say).
What do farmers demand?
1. Repeal of three agriculture laws
2. And legal guarantee for minimum support price (MSP
Written assurance that conventional Mandi system will continue
Implementation of Swaminathan Report
Reduction in diesel prices for agricultural use by 50%
Repeal of Commission on Air Quality Management in NCR
Release of farmers arrested for burning paddy in Punjab
Electricity Ordinance 2020 to be abolished
No interference of Centre in state subjects
Withdrawal of all cases against and release of farmer leaders
Now that we have in brief understood the laws and the demands of the farmers, let's understand why the government is adamant in rethinking over repealing of these laws.
These laws were brought in as an ordinance in May 2020 as the parliament was not in session and
were eventually made laws by the parliament in September 2020.
Farmers question governments hurry to bring an ordinance in the middle of the COVID crisis.
Was it to benefit certain corporate houses will always remain a debatable question?
So did the Modi government brought these laws through the backdoor in the form of an
ordinance in order to avoid opposition against the laws or was there a genuine need
for these laws in order to double the income of Farmers or in other words overall welfare
of our “Anndatas”. If these laws are so good then why such strong opposition & agitation
from the past six months and if these are really bad and will do more harm than good then
why the government is not repealing them?
To answer these questions we need to understand the functioning of the Modi government.
Their manifesto had the following main promises for agriculture and
farm sector: (Source: www.bjp.org)
Doubling Farmers’ Income Income
· Interest-free Kisan Credit Card loans
· Voluntary enrollment in Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana
· Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana to
· Assurance of Quality Seeds
· ₹25 lakh crore investment in the Agri-rural sector
· Empowering Farmers through Policies
· Welfare of Farmers
· Warehouse Network across the Country
· Oilseeds Mission
Development of Argi-allied sectors
· We will promote chemical-free organic farming in an additional 20 lakh hectare of hilly, tribal and
rainfed areas in the next 5 years.
· We will launch a dedicated e-commerce portal to enhance the availability of organic produce to the
doorsteps of consumers.
· Goshalas in the country will be linked to the promotion of organic farming.
· Promotion of organic eco-tourism in the vicinity of organic farming will also ensure additional
income to the farmers.
· National Bee-keeping and Honey Mission: We will launch a National Bee-keeping and Honey
· Mission to ensure additional returns to the farmers. We will double the honey production from the
· present 1,15,000 MT by developing infrastructural facilities and providing marketing support.
Expanding Irrigation in Mission Mode
· We have completed work on the long-pending 31 irrigation projects under Pradhan Mantri Krishi
Sinchai Yojana and work will soon be completed on the remaining 68 projects in phases up to December 2019.
· Continuing our efforts to developing irrigation, we will further expand Pradhan MantriKrishi Sinchai Yojana to realize 100% irrigation potential of the country within a defined time-frame.
Cooperatives
· We recognize the role of cooperatives and Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) can play in ensuring
better market linkages and opportunities in the agricultural sector and we are committed to support and strengthen them.
· We will enable the creation of 10,000 new Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) by 2022 to ensure economies of scale for farmers regarding access to inputs and markets.
· To cater to the needs of big cities we will set up a mechanism of direct marketing of vegetables, fruits, dairy and fishery products through farmers’ cooperative organizations so as to ensure better price return to the farmers.
Convergence of Agriculture and Technology
· We will create a mobile app-based system for promoting the availability of agri-implements on rental/custom hiring basis.
· We view solar energy as an additional source of income for farmers and will encourage solar farming on a massive scale so as to enable the ‘Annadaata’(food provider) to become ‘Urja-daata’ (energy provider).
· We will enable development of young agri-scientists to take advantage of Artificial Intelligence,
Machine Learning, Blockchain technology, Big Data analytics etc. for more predictive and profitable precision agriculture.
· We will extensively use technology to ensure a better knowledge of the market prices of various agro products for the benefit of farmers.
If we carefully study these promises, we can easily see where these laws are coming from. In fact, the successive governments have in some form or another advocated such laws. Coming back to the functioning of the Modi Government! It seems “They do what they say” to the likes of:
· Triple Talaq
· CAA
· Article 370
· Farm Bills
· Ram Mandir
The first four did invite protests throughout the country. CAA protests during the end of 2019 came to be known as Shaheen Bag when a connection road was occupied by the protestors and blocked for more than three months and more recently in the farm laws protests., farmers have blocked the borders of Delhi and are on warpath with the government since past six months, Ram Mandir verdict, of course as it came from Supreme Court, did not have much opposition, apart from sporadic protests in some areas. Protesting is the fundamental right but protesting almost every law that the ruling government is promulgating, makes the government think of it as a conspiracy of the opposition. There is just one instance when this government let a Land acquisition ordinance expire after the protests from the farmers in 2015. This government projects its image like the one of “Tough Government” and a government that doesn’t “Shy” from taking tough decisions for the betterment of people at large also if one law is repealed, government fear similar protest happening when any other law is enacted i.e. Uniform Civil Code, Population Control etc. Here I will limit my discussion to the farm bills only.
So if we analyse these farm bills as a failure of the government’s public policy, I would ask few questions:
1. “How a policy made by best of Officers, legal minds and of course our Netas, can be against the crores of “Anndatas”?
2. How a government can be so insensitive that it can make a law that will take away the land of the farmers?
3. How a government which in its manifesto had clearly stated about doubling farmers income, can make laws that will force the farmers to sell their produce at loss?
4. Is it possible for any government to make a law just to favour few industrialists and get away with it?
5. Why opposition is making hue & cry when they themselves proposed such law’s when they were in power?
6. Why farmers are not agreeing to the amendments proposed by the government but are demanding the complete repeal of the laws?
If we are able to answer these questions then hopefully we will find the solution to the problem too! In my opinion, these farm laws would not be repealed but the government will have to face the problem of farmers occupying the borders of Delhi resulting in huge loss to the traders and factories of the area. On the other hand, the government have on different forums assured the protesting farmers and tried to convince them about the benefits of these laws.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court stayed the implementation of all three farm laws and also formed a committee comprising mostly agriculturists to hear the grievances of the farmer unions against the laws. The farmer unions have made clear they will not call off the protests until the three laws are repealed.
