Three farm bills were passed by the Indian Parliament amid vociferous opposition and strict diatribe in the recent monsoon session of Parliament. Actually, the ordinances were passed in the month of June followed by the bill passing with the aim to alter the way agriculture produce is being marketed, sold and stored across the country. But in many parts of the country gruelling protests and mass rallies were conducted by farmer communities supported by political parties in order to admonish the government to review and withdraw the very bills. With over 70 % of India’s population directly or indirectly dependent on agriculture in terms of their livelihood, any bill or a law introduced in relation to this backbone of Indian economy should aim at reformation and rejuvenation of this languishing sector in farmer friendly and sophisticated approach rather than distressing and de-stabilising the morale and economy of the farmers.

Short Review of Farm Bills

Farmer’s Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020.
This bill allows the farmers to sell their harvest and produce outside the physical markets pre-notified under state Agriculture Produce Market Committee (APMC) without paying any state taxes or fees.

What it Promotes and What it Facilitates ?

This bill is aimed to promote the confidence of farmers in selecting the market of their own choice irrespective accessibility or preference in order to fetch the reasonable prices of their produce without any intermediate interference. Asserting and promoting an electronic trading platform in order to upgrade the process of manual marketing to online trading of the farmers produce by enabling the companies, partnership firms, online stores to establish such podiums for direct online marketing. Hence this bill paves the way for more private investment in the agriculture trading and turning on to various entrepreneurship opputunities holding agriculture produce as the base for trading and livelihood generation. Facilitation of the swift intra-state and inter-state trade of farmer’s produce, transcending the blockades of state notified APMC markets and the abetment to trade at farm gates, warehouses , cold storages and so on rises the hope for better prices of the agricultural produce without paying any state tax or fee, can be envisaged as the farmer friendly move.
But the concern is being raised that the revenue earned by the state governments earlier will affect the driving economy of the states by prohibiting the state governments and APMCs from levying tax, fee or any other charge on the farmers produce either on the operations of storage or market or buyer facilitation.
Farmer’s (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price and Farm Services Bill, 2020.
The bill seeks to facilitate the farmers with a supporting structure to employ in contract farming or liability farming based on the agreement signed unanimously between a farmer and buyer before a sowing season to sell the produce to them at the predetermined rates.

What is there in the Agreement ?

As per the bill, the institutions or entities that can act as buyers of the farmer’s produce by signing an agreement include the manufacturing companies of food items, partnership firms, individuals or the specific liability groups and have been collectively named as” Sponsors”. If there is the involvement of any third party in this one to one bargaining, it has to be explicitly mentioned in the agreement. Farmers must show compliance in terms of quality, supply as well as the desired quantity to the buyers as mentioned in the agreement and the sponsors are liable to check the quality of the products as per the agreement, otherwise they will be deemed to have inspected the produce and have to accept the delivery within the stipulated time frame with concurrence. Usually each agreement or accord must have a minimum duration of one cropping season in case of cereals, pulses, vegetables or other horticultural products and one production cycle in case of livestock sector. The maximum duration of agreement can be five years however for maximising beyond five years, it must be mutually decided and agreed by the farmer and sponsor. One of the knack of the agreement that somehow vanishes the future financial constraints as well as the ambiguity regarding the price fluctuations of the farmer's produce is that purchase price of the farming produce including the methods of determining price may be added in the agreement. However, in case the prices go awry and are subjected to subpar variations, the agreement must include a guaranteed price to be paid as well as clear reference for any additional amounts the farmer may receive as reimbursement in terms of bonus or premium.
One if the main points that has enabled this bill to face diatribe and tumult opposition is that it has amputated the idea and base of MSP that is Minimum Support Price that acts a floor price for the sale of any agriculture commodity as determined by the government. The pathetic concern ensuing out of this MSP abolition is that how farmers can demand the desired prices of their produce although the harvest is marketable from quality and quantity perspective. The demand of farmers is that MSPs must be made universal, within the mandis and outside so that all the buyers whether government or private companies or firms will have to use these rates as a minimum base price or floor price below which sales cannot be made.

Essential Commodities (Amendment)

This bill is actually an amendment to the Essential Commodities Act,1955 which aims to curb the powers of the government with respect to production, supply and distribution of certain key commodities.

What has been Amended Now ?

According to the bill, cereals, pulses, oilseeds, onions and potatoes have been eliminated from the list of essential commodities and government can impose stock holding limits and regulate the prices for above commodities only under exceptional circumstances like war, famine, extraordinary inflation and natural calamity of behemothic intensity and they can be imposed only if there is a 100 % increase in retail price of horticulture produce or 50 % increase in the retail price of non-perishable agricultural items. Culminating the fears of private investors regulatory influence in business operations and providing freedom to produce, hold and supply to either domestic or foreign markets can dislodge the economic ambiguity in farming enterprises.
Over the past one month now, the voices raised over the issues like abolition of state taxes on agricultural products, uncertainty looming over the omission of MSPs and various other lacunas which can easily pave the way for corporate dominance and dilution of this backbone of national economy. Any law or bill proposed for the agriculture sector should not tweak and impinge with the financial stability of the farming community. So, it becomes the fundamental responsibility of economists, policy makers and agriculture economy experts to clear the dilemma and skepticism of farmers regarfing these farm bills with shrewdness and in an imperturbable way.

Email:-yasirnazirparrey@gmail.com.