Politics in the name
of farmers is a flourishing and beneficial trade for the politicians and
dalalas. Otherwise, there is no reason why no drastic changes have been
brought in the agricultural policy of India for decades. The number of small
and marginal farmers is rising with every passing year and the load on the
agriculture sector is increasing day by day. The need, therefore, is not only
to modernise agriculture but also to offload it as much as possible. There
should not be any doubt left in anybody's mind that the opposition to three new
Farm Bills recently passed by both houses of Parliament is specious and it is
being orchestrated and motivated, not by genuine farmers, but by those
intermediaries whose interests are getting hurt. These politicians
and middlemen have been reaping earning huge profits by fleecing the farmers
and consumers. That was why there have been no takers for their protest marches
and demonstrations organised on 25th September.
The three
Bills, which have been attracting the attentions are: Farmers
Produce Trade and Commerce (Protection and Facilitation Bill, Farmers
(Empowerment and Protection) Agreement and Price Assurance and Essential
Commodities (Amendment) Bill but only two points which are being thrown by the
opponents are the MSP( Minimum Support Price) and APMCs (Agriculture Produce
Marketing Committees), which opponents say will wither away by these Bills,
which have since become Acts. These Acts will
facilitate and permit the farmers to sell theirs produces outside the Mandis
(wholesale markets) regulated by Agricultural Produce Marketing Committees
constituted by different state legislations. Many states have passed their own
laws to mandate 'agricultural trade' through APMCs. Although the purpose of the
APMCs was to ensure fair prices to be paid to the products of the farmers yet they have not only miserably failed in their objectives but have practically
become the centres of corruption and the exploitation of the farmers.
Here are two examples, which I can cite with my own personal
knowledge that how deep the corruption has gone down in in the APMC.
There is one small wholesale grain market,(Mandi) in Kharkhoda in Panipat
district of Haryana and another one that I am talking about is of the Azadpur
vegetable and fruit Mandi of Delhi, which is considered to be one of the
biggest Mandis of Northern India. Any person having even
the elementary information about the functioning of these Mandis will vouchsafe
that it is middlemen and profiteers with the help of the corrupt minions of
Samiti, who rule the roost. Hundreds of trucks make a beeline every day
particularly at Azadpur mandi to unload their produces but those who go through
the intermediaries or by greasing the palms of the shenanigans of mandi they
get priority, but others suffer and lose heavily. Moreover, if anyone wants
immediate payment of the produces, he/ she has to cough up at least five per
cent of the total amount to the rogues. But the new Act provides for the
immediate payment. One can easily understand about those persons, who are
standing against the new Acts. Farmers and consumers have been the ultimate
losers till now which the new Acts will ensure that they are no longer
exploited.
These Acts permit the
electronic trading of their produces. With heavy teledensity, the farmers are
now well connected, and they can sell theirs produces online, which was
well-nigh impossible in the APMCs. However, the government has not completely
done away with APMCs, they will continue to co-exist along with new arrangements.
Minimum Support Price will not be the part of the Acts, as it exists even
today, but that will continue to be announced by the government for different
crops from time to time. Thus, we find that APMCs will not have suffocating
dominance, which they have in the present circumstances. Therefore, it is abundantly clear that the bogey of
the MSP and APMCs, is being created more by non-farmers than by farmers but
that too is unfounded. The new laws unshackle the farmers and give them the
freedom to sell their products anywhere in India.
Farming, to say the least, is not an attractive occupation.
Nearly fifty per cent of farmers want to move out of it because it is becoming
non-remunerative. Farm sizes are getting smaller day by day. The number
marginal farmers have gone up in the last few decades and their condition is
getting pathetic and is no better than those of the farm labourers. Tiny farms
are the big hindrances in the modernization of agriculture. So, the contract
farming will provide the good impetus for the modernization of the agriculture
and the new Acts seek to encourage them but that will not be binding for the
farmers as they will have the freedom to opt into or out of it. Recently
Simranjit Kaur Badal wife of Akali leader Sukhvinder Singh Badal resigned from
the Union cabinet of ministers opposing the new farm laws. Shri Badal has
written an article in a newspaper, where he has simply expressed his fear that
it will lead to corporatization. The farmers will get a good price to their
yields for a few years and thereafter they will be exploited by the corporates.
He has, however, given no reason or logic in favour of his contentions. He has
forgotten the fact that the establishments of E-chaupals and E-procurement
centres will go a long way in removing the roles of middlemen.
The Essential Commodities Act was enacted decades ago to stop hoardings,
but it has essentially hurt the farmers. They were not protected if the prices
of potatoes or onions fell because they were prevented from taking them to
other places for obtaining higher prices. Warehousing is so essential for the
storage of the produces but that cannot be built by the farmers of small
landholdings, so again the need for the contract farming hardly needs to be
emphasized.
Be that as it may, these
new farms acts, therefore, must be welcomed with open arms as they will
remove the dominant roles of middlemen who have been holding the farmers to
ransom without any qualms and compunction.
No comments:
Post a Comment