Many farmer organizations have alleged that these new laws would make farming difficult. The farmers are afraid and think that the government is trying to provide benefits to the corporate sector in the name of reforms. In other words, these new farm laws are to benefit corporate houses. As a result, farmers are worried whether they would even get a minimum support price.
What if private market yards pop up?
The corporates would get the opportunity to start market yards under these new farm laws. With the private market yards popping up, farmers would lose their power to bargain. In the case of the government market, they can complain to the higher official if prices are dropped. Hence the organizations want the government to strengthen the government yards and bring in accountability.
Everyone knows what happened in Bihar?
In the year 2006, the APMC Act was cancelled. After that the farmers are made to sell their products at a lower price than the minimum support price. If they are to trade their produce in the online commodity futures market, the product should have quality. The Panjab farmers association has said that they cannot sell 90% of their produce in the commodity futures market. Contract farming is strengthened by the Price Guarantee Act.
The Farmers’ Association is also concerned that if corporates cultivate in line with global demand, there will be an effect on different crops. Already 70 percent of the world’s hybrid seeds and chemical pesticide businesses are controlled by four corporate companies. Farmers’ associations warn that the new laws could put crop processing and even supermarkets under corporate control. They also argue that it is not possible to control and hold such companies accountable.
Have the results of reforms benefited farmers?
It has been almost three decades since the economic reforms were brought in the country. These have led to free trade agreements. Multinational companies have also benefited from free trade agreements. Corporates are profiting by stockpiling large-scale agricultural products and controlling prices in the market. The farmer is not getting any profit.
The average income of a farmer family in the country does not exceed Rs. 40,000 per annum. These figures show how incomes in agriculture have fallen. The new laws brought by the Centre say that farmers can sell their crop freely anywhere, but no one is thinking about whether the farmers have the power to do that or not?
The farmers are not interested in selling grains at a place near their farms, can they take it to markets in neighbouring states? The farmers’ organizations are worried that the middlemen would end up as farmers and buy at a low price and sell the same at a high price in the free market. That is why farmers in the north are strongly opposing the new laws brought by the Centre, say farmer leaders.