Put the farm laws on hold, uphold farmers’ rights

Context: Recently, the Supreme Court has suggested the Government to form a joint panel to look into the demands of the agitating farmers against newly passed Farms Acts. Farmers see this as a moral victory.

Associated concerns of the farmers:

• Stock holdings by the private may lead to hoarding: Under the new Acts, any trader, company or agri-business, will be able to store unlimited quantities wheat, rice, sugar etc. for any period of time.
• The mechanization and corporatization of agriculture:
  • Corporates can manipulate the prices at the point of production and also influence the market price at which the end product is sold.
  • This has threatened the survival of 56.7% of the total workforce and 86.08% of small and marginal operational landholding farmers (as per the Tenth Agriculture Census, 2015-16).
• Legal validity: As agriculture is a state subject under the seventh schedule of the constitution.
• New amendments to the Electricity Act: Propose to fully privatize distribution of power, a crucial input in farm irrigation.

Way forward:

• Reforms should start from backward linkage: the farmers, the last man as Gandhi would say.
• Lower input costs: will make farming remunerative.
• Skilling, training and empowering: the small and marginal farmers to become competitive on their landholding of fewer than two hectares before introducing major policy reforms.
• Strengthening Farmer producer organizations (FPOs): Since fragmented landholding has become a hurdle in achieving economies of scale, encouraging FPO provides a solution -
  • Must be registered as a company or a cooperative to run farming as a business.
  • Achieve Government’s target of setting up 10,000 FPOs by 2023-24 (currently only 881 FPOs registered).
  • Need to hire the services of an experienced resource institution as a promoter: will help in availing government grants, tax rebates and can leverage official schemes.

Conclusion: Government should initiate widespread, transparent and participative consultations with all stakeholders, including gram panchayats, to arrive at informed decisions by consensus.