Name: Understanding India’s new farm laws and farmer protests
Uploaded: 2021-02-11
Duration: 6 min 59 s
Description: Experts weigh in on the agricultural reforms.

Experts weigh in on the agricultural reforms.

Understanding India’s new farm laws and farmer protests

(Photo by Raj K Raj/Hindustan Times via Getty Images)

International

Indian farmers are still protesting against bills reforms 

Yeah. Oh Since November 2020 hundreds of thousands of farmers in India have camped outside Delhi to protest new laws that aim to deregulate farming. The government hopes this will bring an influx of private investment and modernists struggling sector. The farmers say their laws will only benefit large corporations. This essentially means that the government has opened up for Indian agriculture, were market oriented agriculture, and that is what is worrying farmers. For decades, farmers in India have sold their produce through state run market for is called Agricultural Produce Market Committees or a PMCS. These goods are assured a minimum support price, or MSP, set by the government. Right now, there's structural issues with Indian agriculture. That's why you have a situation where, even though more than half of the country is involved in agriculture, the gross value added to the economy is less than 20% at 16%. So that does your early sorry state of Indian agriculture. You have a lot of restrictions at each level of agricultural activities, right from its storage stockpiling movement to sail as a consequence. Right now, Indian agriculture does not have much private invite, and it has become subsistence advocate. The three farming laws each focused on a different part of the system. The first law facilitates barrier free inter and intra state trade and provide the framework for e trading. The second law provides a legal framework for written agreements between farmers and every business firms. The third law deregulated production stores, transfer and distribution of goods, and move stock limits previously set by governments except under extraordinary conditions, including war and famine. Since the new laws allow for trade outside of the government committee, farmers fear their minimum price guarantees will disappear. Farmers fear that they will lose the minimum assured price they get, their man would be taken away by the corporations, and corporate control will end up in exploitation of farmers. So the value change that we have should ensure that the that the farmers are not exploited. But farmers also get a respectable as a decent share of the ultimate consumer price. That is what I think the Indian farmers are demanding. The farmers argue that the laws of rescue parliament without consulting are engaging with the people would be most effective. They're calling for a full repeal of the three laws, the protesters and the government remain in a deadlock and haven't been able to come to an agreement despite more than 10 rounds of talks. There is a huge trust deficit, mhm between the two sides. And why is that because of the way that they received reforms came in earlier. When these protests just to go, the government almost ignored the farmers. Let's not forget that yes, the farmers, farmers, people confidence mhm Agriculture's contribution to India's GDP has been shrinking for decades from 43% in 1967 to 16% in 2019, and over half of Indian farmer households struggle with debt. In September 2020 speech, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the existing every market system had been constraining farmers. He argued that the reforms were necessary and would let farmers sell wherever they could obtain the highest profit. These reforms were operative in America. For the last six or seven decades, these reforms have been operated in Canada, Australia, European Union and so on and in none of these countries these reforms have helped increase farmers incomes. Uh, the farmers now survive on huge agricultural subsidies support that comes in from the government. And these are the places where we have the land, you know, huge landholdings. Uh, the average landholding size in America is more than 400 acres, and 86% of India's farming population have less than five acres, which means very small holdings. So a model which failed to prop up farm incomes in in a country which had large landholdings like in America and European in Korean, how can we? We believe that the same model will work for small land holdings in India. We need reforms which are based on, um, you know, India's conditions, India's requirements, India's needs. You know, India introduced major economic reforms in 1991 to liberalize its economy. All sectors were involved except agriculture, which today employs over 40% of India's labor force. I know it sounds brutal to say that, but it's a sad reality. There are too many farmers in India entirely all sorts of sector, which is not doing very well. What is the solution here? There has to be inevitably, a situation needs to be created where the farmers that retain in agriculture are productive and some people are weaned out of that sector, and go to other sectors same manufacturing where low skilled jobs can be created just the way that they're created an agricultural, low skilled jobs, Semi skilled jobs can be created in manufacturing and that will actually help the Indian economy and also make agriculture more productive. Yeah, you know, no reform is a magic bullet. These reforms in themselves, they can do a lot, but not enough. And we have to ensure that for these reforms to have the most effect there, accompanied by the right sort of moves that there is a conducive environment that there is created so that farmers have bargaining power, They have the technology, they have the knowledge, they have the know how and they have the capability. The Indian government proposed a joint committee to discuss the legislation, which is temporarily suspended. But the farming leaders rejected the offer, saying they'll accept nothing less than a complete repeal of all three laws. On India's Republic Day holiday on January 26 farmers drove tens of thousands of tractors into Delhi to rally against the law. Some farmers clash with police, please tear gas and batons and the protesters. The government has since blocked the Internet in areas where the farmers are gathered and arrested journalists and protesters. Yeah, for the government to bridge that trump deficit is going to be a monumental task. The government has to provide assurances in terms of what it's going to do. It has to be honest. Some will be left behind. So what? What does the government have installed for those people? What is the plan? You know how How is it going to integrate those people into the economy that has to be laid there?