Three Union ministers, Narendra Singh Tomar, Piyush Goyal and Som Prakash, and 40 agricultural leaders began the sixth round of talks on Wednesday afternoon on a series of demands by agricultural unions, including the repeal of three agricultural laws, in Vigyan Bhawan from Delhi.
According to one official, Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar said the government is open to negotiations and suggested that if everyone agreed, the talks could tackle the easier issues first.
The official said that Rail Minister Goyal and Tomar held two meetings with Interior Minister Amit Shah before heading to the meeting location.
The first issue that farmers want to debate was the “modalities (to) be adopted for the repeal of the three central agricultural laws”.
Second, the unions want “mechanisms in place to convert the remunerative support prices recommended by the National Farmers Commission into a legally guaranteed right for all farmers and all agricultural products.”
Farmers also want amendments to an ordinance to completely exclude farmers from any penalty for burning crop residues, one of the main causes of pollution.
Their latest demand is the continuation of subsidized energy for agricultural use, rather than a proposed switch to direct cash, which farmers say will increase energy costs for them.
Basically, the laws change the way Indian farmers do business by creating free markets, as opposed to a decades-old network of government markets, which allow traders to store essential commodities for future sales and establish a framework. national for contract farming.
Together, the laws will allow large corporations and global supermarket chains to buy directly from farmers, without going through decades-long regulations.
Farmers say the reforms would make them vulnerable to exploitation by large corporations and would erode the government’s procurement system, whereby the government buys commodities, such as wheat and rice, at guaranteed rates, known as floor prices. support (MSP).
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