A farmer is someone who owes huge respect. He is the most recognized hard worker behind the food which we intake. He is regarded as the ‘backbone of the agricultural works’, ‘backbone of our society’. He lives in a middle-class family, some under the poverty line and some slightly above the poverty line. Farmers grow crops like wheat, barley, rice, etc., The maximum food that is taken by many Indians is wheat and rice. They are cultivated in a huge amount. Farmers do cultivate many products like cereals, pulses, vegetables, fruits, and many others. Even when the sun is scorching extremely, other people normally think twice, whether to go out or not. But farmers do work on it. Whatever be the weather condition they work on the field. They find it more difficult to overcome the hard times like drought, flood, and cyclone than every other human. That shows their commitment to their work. They put forth their maximum potential to get a maximum harvest.
The transportation method is simple to understand here. When the supply decreases and the demand increases then the price increases which makes the farmer delightful and consumers sadden. Meanwhile, if the supply increases and the demand decrease then the price decreases. That makes the farmer sadder as it results in a loss for them. So taking this into the account, there resides a term called “MSP (Minimum Support price)” not to hold on a huge loss for the farmers. As the abbreviation claims, the farmer is guaranteed the minimum profit for his work rather than getting nothing. This MSP helps farmers in a great aspect. And this MSP is fixed by the CACP (Commission for Agricultural Costs and Price) which is functioned under the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare.
All subjects in India is divided into
1. Union list
2. State list
3. Concurrent list
The general information to know here is that agriculture comes under the state list.
Usually seen, many hard workers who did their job perfectly live a luxurious life thereafter. But farmers are deprived of the luxury in society. Despite the luxurious life, they are pushed into a situation to attempt suicide. And that takes place much in India. They live a very difficult life in the past years. The major problem here is they do not get enough pay for their work. Since the trader between farmers and consumers accrues an enormous amount, the farmers do not get the amount like the traders. A farmer seems to be maneuvered. They find it hard to provide a good education for their children and sometimes the situation goes worse that they don’t have proper food to intake. This makes me tremble because he cultivates and he gets nothing? How this could be tolerated.
Ahead of the act passed, the farmers are supposed to sell their products to APMC (Agricultural Produce Market Committee) yards which were passed by the Central Government as “APMC Model Act, 2003”. The APMC yards lie as the storage building for the farmers. From the APMC yards, the traders get their products and from them the wholesalers, large retailers, Malls, supermarkets, exporters get it. And from any of these business heads, we the consumers obtain the products. This helps the intermediator between consumers and farmers receive profit as much as he can.
In considering all this The Indian Farm Reforms of 2020 refer to three agricultural bills passed by the Parliament of India on 27 September 2020. The three bills are as follows:
1. The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020
2. The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020
3. The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020
Let’s here view these three acts in detail.
1. The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020
“This act states that the farmers can sell anywhere beyond the APMC yards. They can sell to the customer whoever needs it. It gives validation for both Interstate and Intrastate trading. Living in the technology-oriented life, the farmers are even supposed to sell their products online”.
Disadvantages:
Firstly the online system destroys the “Mandi or APMC” system. And the farmers are not much familiar with using the gadgets. States like Punjab and Haryana farmers would lose a source of state revenue as the farmers selling outside the APMC yards are not supposed to get MSP. The objective one is that the APMC tax is not imposed in many states. In such a case state to state transactions have due tax amounts to pay. One of the drawbacks of this act is that the small farmers don’t have the incentive for large states to sell the goods. While the big farmers sell within APMC to private companies which could help farmers attain the MSP. Farmers' income depends on the ups and downs of the market. When the demand decreases the farmers will be squeezed between the rising cost for cultivation and low prices due to low demand.
2. The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020
“The primary purpose of this act is contract farming and the secondary purpose is to provide a nationwide legal fame work. There lies a legal agreement between farmers and the MNC (Multinational Company). The MNC initially tells the demand for their product which the farmers have to sell them and fix their price amount accords. If there arise any disputes between the farmer and the corporate the case is not hired to the court of justice. This dispute to settle down there is a method to follow named ‘conciliation’. With that also farmers can solve the dispute in an easy manner”.
The government says this act will transform Indian agriculture and attract private investment. The MNC will agree to support farmers most through supplying inputs, assisting with land preparation, providing production advice, and transporting produce to its premises.
Disadvantages:
As we all know, MNC will have the upper hand on farmers. So there resides a fear in farmers as there is a defect in the quality and so no affordable cost to be settled would be uttered by the corporate companies. A private company can exploit a farmer very easily with legal glosses. Here is an example
Gujarat Farmer's case:
Nearly a year ago, PepsiCo India Holiday (PIH) filed a case against few potato farmers in Gujarat for infringement on a variety of potatoes registered by PepsiCo. The Multinational Corporation(MNC) seeked ₹1.05 crores from each of the farmers for infringement on a variety of potato patented by PepsiCo, commercially known as FC5 and grown exclusively for its potato chips brand.
3. The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020
“This amendment act controls production, supply/distribution of certain commodities. The government declares the essential. This act is to look on, not to reach the utmost increase in the price of a product. Government helps the consumers here and also to stop hoarding and black marketing. It is to be noted that essential is to be declared only in times of war, famine, extraordinary price rise and natural calamities for products like cereals, pulses, potato, onion, edible oilseeds, and oils”.
During the pandemic (March 2020) masks and sanitizers were declared as essential commodities. By July 2020, it has been removed from the essential commodities. The new bill proposes to remove cereals, pulses, oilseeds, edible oils, onion, and potatoes from the list of essential commodities. The bill is also aimed at removing fears of private investors of excessive regulatory interference in their business operations. The Government takes control of perishable goods like onion, potatoes when it increases 100% and for non-perishable goods like cereals, pulses, etc when it increases 50% of the amount sustaining.
Disadvantages:
Not regulating the supply of such food items means the chances of hoarding are high. The act will allow big businessmen to hoard essential commodities such as cereals, pulses, edible oil, onion, and potato leading to a rise in prices.
Overview:
All things considered, farmers started protesting. They were in the sensation of not going to grab much profit in the account of these bills passed recently. The Government seems to make the agricultural system to privatization. There are many categories that run under the government. As like them why not the agricultural system? Why are those farmers being isolated? Is this any kind of agricultural destruction? A bio war? Already we have started destroying our agricultural lands in the name of building constructions. And now those bills contrast to many farmers. December 8, 2020 was declared as Bharat Bandh. So many struggles being faced by the farmers right now. If it was a kind of agricultural destruction, then what could we do for our future?
Let’s together support agriculture rather than being down in the dumps thinking of our life ahead.
Excellent.Well explained about farmers and the farmer bill 2020
ReplyDeleteTnq so much💖
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