Farm Laws for Dummies

Farm Bills for dummies! The farm bills are NOT what the farmers asked for nor is it good for them. Its very clear if u see it balanced & unbiased. With inputs from many experts and andolanjivis and what one has been observing for some time now here is an attempt to explain some of the very frequently asked questions. 1/ is APMC only affecting Punjab & Haryana? Why is there not much protest in other states? No, untrue. APMC is very effective there bcos of the structure and the crop pattern. Paddy which is not consumed much out there is grown big time (bcos they were told to do so by the govt, in the green revolution days to ensure food security for the nation). So the govt procurement is the only assured market for them. In most states the govt procurement centres (run by states like in TN) procure (often referred to as union office or godowns) and stored in FCI godowns. In Punjab n Haryana prolly due the huge qtys (they produce close to 50% of our nations production and >90% of what they grow is procured by the govt). the Delta region in TN also the farmers depend on the govt procurement centres only. Its not true either that only Punjab and Haryana are protesting. They started it long back bcos they understood the issue long back. There are major protests in Bihar, UP, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Andhra/telengana. Karnataka, TN also saw lots of protests and there is concern all over. MSP will be a major issue and the other 2 Laws will have bigger ill-effect in these states. 2/ is APMC functioning in all states? Since agri is a state matter (ahem, yes, still..) the states can take decisions. Some states like Bihar, kerala don’t have that. APMC has been dismantled in Bihar for a long time now and one can see the impact. For eg: last year the price offered for paddy in Bihar was a solid 1000Rs less than what was the price in the apmc yards of Punjab. So one saw 1000s of tons of paddy brought in to Punjab & Haryana (illegally) to be sold bcos of the price advantage. You still think dismantling APMC will help farmers? 3/ what is the advantage of APMC? APMC allows only registered players to trade and offers monitoring & regulation. APMC yards also are spaces for drying or processing, storing etc in many places. APMC does have lots of scope for improvement. Yes it has many flaws and there are cartels working against the farmers interest in many places. But if the intent and content of a farm bill was right, it would have addressed these issues and tried to improve that and not dismantle and give away the whole market to Private companies esp the biggies like Adani, Reliance. 4/ so why are states like Kerala that don’t have APMC also making noise? Firstly Kerala is not a paddy surplus state and its local demand is so high it is an import dependent. Though in the recent past it is working on growing more. And kerala is also a plantation major state. As we saw before, its about regulation and all those plantation crops like coffee, coconut, spices, etc have respective boards thus ensuring regulation. The only plantation crop tea that doesn’t have a board (so is unregulated and open to private firms) is a big loser! That is why you get to see only BIG corporates ruling the tea market and the small players all have been swept away! Exactly what is being warned now for other crops if they push for “free market”. 4/ Will not Private companies coming in, help in better pricing for farmers? No, not really! Or may be for a year or two just to prove a point they may and then the biggies will get to their exploitative mechanisms and farmers will be left struggling. firstly we should understand that we are talking of Regulated market when we talk of APMC (where the agents will have to register and the farmers have a redressal forum. Less prices, nonpayment, delays and other issues are escalated and attended to. Thus giving a safety net not only in prices (MSP) but for other disputes too. 5/ why does one need regulation? Isn’t free market better? Better for whom? The private players (esp the ones that play with big monies ofcourse taken from banks) will have a free hand and these are known for operating for their own betterment and vulgar profits ONLY. So a free market is a space for their free run and more exploitative practices and increasing the woes of the farmers. In a country like ours where the Big rich players have lots of advantages and political & financial backing, there shall not be fair practices. Their style of “vulgar profit at any cost” will affect farmers and consumers. So it is better to keep them on a check and have regulations intact. Pl do note that regulation is all around us in the so called free market too. Stock markets are regulated. Telecom has TRAI as a regulator. Banks , insurance all have. (ok they all could have failed at different times, still) So its not anything novel that is being spoken of here in agriculture. How I wish the managers of the corporate and IT firms who appraise the employees fix the salary each month. No fixed salary structure please! Is it not sensible to have a regulated market to address the already suffering farmers. Farmers do not have fair or right prices nor do they fix the price themselves. one should recall the various promises during every election about increasing the prices or assuring 50% more than the cost price (C2 + 50% is a recommendation from 2005!) or doubling their incomes. 6/ The govt is saying they will not dismantle APMCs, so is that not good? Now these new laws will open up unregulated “free” markets that will be dominated by private biggies thus ending up in unlevel playing fields. What will happen when there are 2 markets- one regulated and other unregulated, its any body’s guess. Even these agents in APMC yards will move to unregulated markets to avoid commission and regulation! Yes, the govt will not dismantle the APMC but it will die on its own! Which also means the MSP will also not be adhered to. So there is no truth in govt saying it is not dismantling APMC and MSP. But in reality it’s a matter of time, it will die on its own. Govt is just enabling it, for the sake of corporates. 7/ Can the state govts intervene? The govt thru various clauses is taking away the powers of the state govt thus tampering the federal structure and also is interfering in the states powers. Esp with Agri being a state subject. Just to take one example, the Govt is saying that they will give state government the power to register traders. Whereas the Acts have taken away the state government's power to regulate the agricultural trade outside mandis, now they just say that the state governments can register them. It is meaningless to ask state govt to do a clerical job, while there is no power to regulate. The concern of the farmers still remains unaddressed, about an un-level playing field, hence undermining the APMC market yard system. 8/ so where is the problem? The core concerns about removing regulation on traders and companies outside the APMC mandis, which means removing all protections (how ever little that was) offered to farmers by the regulation system, remain completely un-addressed. 9/ is not the govt saying they will assure the MSP continuing? What is being portrayed as "written assurance on MSP" is actually only a written assurance that the current procurement will continue. What farmers are demanding is not a 'written assurance' but a legal guarantee of MSP through an Act; and they are demanding not only for paddy and wheat where procurement is currently present, but for all crops. Once again, the government has made a meaningless offer, just for the sake of showing that it has made an offer. The farmers are well aware of such loud promises and their retraction in many instances. 10/ Are u saying the Govt will renege on their words? The Govts (and esp this one) have at many instances promised and not delivered. for instance, this govt promised some 5 years back about doubling of farm income by 2021. We know the outcome and their struggle till now. They promised 22000 rural haats in 2018! Not even 200 have been delivered! The 1.5 times on the cost price to increase their income by 50% that was promised by the PM (C2 + 50%) is a joke! How they manipulated in the budget by saying they actually meant A2 + 50% and not C2 and they were pointed to the fact that A2 +50% was achieved even before they promised! So the distrust actually is not questionable. 11/ what of the contract farming Law? This is also very clearly framed only to help the corporates. To have a free hand and free market! There is no binding or accountability for the corporate. There is no penalty discussed for the companies if they fail. Infact the farmers cant even take them to court! There are so many open questions too. What happens if companies engage in contract farming but don't register their contracts? What protections are there for farmers who are the weak party in enforcing the contract? What protections for farmers who suffer due to faulty inputs such as provided by the contracting companies, or who suffer crop losses due to factors out of their control like pest attacks and natural calamities? What protections for farmers from being sued by the companies like potato farmers being sued by Pepsi? None of these issues are addressed. 11/ The third law is some amendments in the Essential commodities Act! That is a very interesting amendment they have brought in this old act! ECA ensured traders do not horde and huge stock piling wasn’t allowed. Now this new amendment allows the private players like Adanis & Ambanis to stock how much ever they want in their huge silos they have built all over. And then? Play around with prices, thus affecting farmers and consumers too. One has to see all these 3 Farm laws in totality! It is just created for their corporate friends. Just to help these big private behemoths to be able to contract and ask the farmers to grow what they want, store and horde how much ever and sell them anywhere at any price with no regulation! Oh, Thank you!! Like sudha Narayanan says : the three laws “collectively invisibilize trade area transactions, contract farming and stocking in a way that makes them unregulatable.” 12/ What about some ppl saying that these are all the mandi operators and middlemen protesting and not farmers! Oh, that’s a joke! If there were so many brokers and middlemen as accused, where on Earth will these lakhs of them be operating from? One state? let us for an argument say these are agents, still it means some one is affected and the role of any govt is to engage, treat them with dignity, discuss with the stakeholders and then introduce in the parliament (not thru the back door) after debate and discussion! Such mindless statements shouldn’t have space even in FAQs. 13/ Is it true that farmers can now sell anywhere, after these new Laws? NO, that was the situation before too.. infact the much touted (& failed) e-Nam was a classic example of farmers being allowed to sell anywhere. Another was ITCs e-chaupal. oh yes! Digital India and all that! bcos the govts successfully imparted education n computer knowledge to all farmers they can go and sell online. Also they will have the time to sit and sell online to the far off consumers! And will have the wherewithal to face the frauds n failures it can throw on them! But do note that the fact is they can sell anywhere..it was there already possible, nothing new. 14/ We often see this comment that farmers do not pay tax. Is that true? another laughable accusation. Farmers pay indirect taxes like all of us on all their purchases. (domestic and farm) . Farmers also have to pay for their borewells and its maintenance, and for various other things that are required for farming. Over and above this they are never allowed to fix prices themselves nor include opportunity costs or even that of their family labour! do note that they have to have respectable income for paying “income” tax! Yes, the income from agricultural activity is not taxed. If at all, you know who get enough income to pay tax? The big rich farmers who have huge land holding! (78% hold less than 4 acres in India) But one should note that it is the industries that actually take too many sops. Be it tax waiver, bank loans waiver (and add the huge NPAs) or the land they get for free or the SEZs where they have too many sops and waivers. Devinder Sharma quotes studies that estimate between 2010 and 2016-17, Indian farmers lost Rs 45 lakh crores in farm incomes! a loss of about Rs. 2.64 lakh crore every year because farmers were denied their rightful income. 15/ They say only a few farmers are protesting! Is that so? A good eye check could help! a few photos here are from UP! There are lakhs of them in all the directions of Delhi ( Rajasthan, UP, Uttarakhand, MP) and from Maharashtra and other states too. one has to be the mindless to believe and say so even after seeing so many photos and videos. Finally see this: a beautiful portrayal by Suresh Ediga: