Updated: September 26, 2020 7:09:40 am
Farmers gesture as they block a national road during a protest against agricultural bills in Punjab (REUTERS / Adnan Abidi)
On Friday, farmers’ organizations across the country called for a bandh to protest the three bills approved by Parliament. These bills were approved amid protests by opposition parties, without discussion in Parliament. Even government allies, like the Shiromani Akali Dal, have raised apprehensions, lending its voice to the demands of farmers.
Projected as landmark reforms, the government promises freedom to mandi farmers from the “evil and exploitative” Agricultural Products Marketing Committee (APMC) and from intermediaries who charge commissions for the trade in these mandi.
Most farmers would agree that the operation of the mandis is inefficient, opaque, politicized, and often controlled by cartels. The attempt to reform the operation of the mandis is not new and has been in the works for the past two decades.
So why are farmers protesting instead of welcoming mandi freedom?
Himanshu, Associate Professor, Center for Economic Studies and Planning, JNU, provides the answers in his opinion article in The Indian Express.
On the one hand, he writes, this time farmers are on the streets fighting to restore the primacy of mandi in the agricultural trade mainly because APMC mandi are an essential part of the agricultural commercial ecosystem.
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While farmers may have a confrontational attitude towards the operation and management of mandi, they also share a symbiotic relationship with intermediaries and mandi that extends beyond transactions of agricultural products.
“Intermediaries are a source of information, inputs and, sometimes, unsecured credit,” he explains.
The anger is also due to the way the bills were applied to the farming community. Not only have farmers’ organizations not been consulted, but even state and allied governments.
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Second, all previous attempts to reform agricultural marketing respected the constitutional separation of powers. Most of the APMC reforms were enacted by the states.
On the other hand, current reforms completely bypass state governments and weaken their ability to regulate agricultural markets even though it is a state issue.
Furthermore, unlike previous reforms where the focus was on strengthening the functioning of the APMC mandis while at the same time allowing greater access and participation to the private market, the current bill bypasses the APMC entirely, creating a separate negotiation structure.
Most farmers realize that the reform is not fulfilling the promise of freedom for farmers but the freedom of private capital to buy agricultural products at cheaper prices and without any regulation or supervision by the government.
“The fight to retain the APMC despite its shortcomings is also a fight to extract a commitment from the government to maintain state support for the agricultural sector,” Himanshu explains.
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