Agricultural Reforms: Uncovering the Reality

Before delving deep into the core subject, let me tell my readers a small story from China and explain a phrase popularly known as “Cobra Effect” in public policy ecosystem. Cobra Effect is the undesired outcome of a policy that instead of addressing the problem, aggravates the issue causing more consequences than a solution. Experts traced its origin to an incident in British India when a British officer trying to end the population of Cobras caused its population to rise instead.

Now let me brief you about an incident in China that happened in the after years of its so-called Cultural Revolution under Mao Zedong. Desperate for revolutionising the Chinese society, Mao undertook an infamous campaign known as the Four Pests Programme. The programme was launched across China as a national policy, involving every citizen and even school children led by, or instead, forced by on-ground Communist cadres to exterminate rats, flies, mosquitos, and especially sparrows, as they were according to him, a manifestation of capitalism whose hunger never ended and who ate lot many grains. The savagery that went in implementing it shook the conscience of the world, but the Communists were adamant. There also was an incident involving the Polish Embassy in China, where the Embassy authority had refused Communists to enter its premises and kill the innocent birds that had taken refuge inside. However, it couldn’t deter the CCP from executing their programme, and they started banging on drums, pots and pans, non-stop for two days and nights until all birds dropped dead with fear and exhaustion. Here, the linear thinking Communist forgot to consider the usefulness of sparrows and how they also protect the harvest from insects and pests, and as a result, China suffered a massive famine, where if not millions, thousands of Chinese lost their lives to starvation.

Anyway, moving on, readers must be wondering what this anecdote of the Cobra Effect had to do with the core topic? Well, it is extensively visible in the manner and actions displayed by the opposition while opposing the three bills related to agricultural reforms. When parliamentarians crossed all boundaries of decency and took the Temple of Democracy hostage, it reminds us of those CCP exterminators who stood for two days and nights outside the Polish Embassy adamant on killing the birds and even rendered the Polish Authorities desperate attempts of intervention and saving the birds useless. There is a slight possibility that, had the birds been spared, it could have saved China from extensive famines.

We also see a parallel between these birds and our marginal farmers; we see a resemblance between the Polish Embassy officials and the Government of India, desperate to rescue our marginal farmers from their present state. But here is a happy twist, unlike the Polish Embassy, the nation has stood with the government in their attempt to save our anna daatas, and two of these three undertakings had already taken the shape of full-fledged legislation, thus paving the way for a whole new ecosystem supporting our Agricultural sector.

The disillusioned opposition is also trying to run a misinformation campaign blaming the Modi government of acting exclusively and not consulting the parliament before implementing these Bills

What is even more intriguing about the opposition is their adamant attempt to whitewashing the lapses of the Agricultural Produce Market Committees (APMCs). Although APMCs do serve some purpose, yet selectively ignoring their lapses doesn’t serve any constructive purpose and is counter-productive to the nation’s aspiration of doubling farmers’ income thus enabling them to lead a dignified life. The APMCs have a firm root in the colonial era, particularly in the Berar Cotton and Grain Market Act of 1887, entirely aimed at controlling the agricultural trade in India and exploiting the farmers for the British regime. Similarly, APMCs also became exploitative, as it imposed restrictions and forced farmers to sell their produce only via designated channels, consequently conceding in Cartelization and exploitation of Marginalized farmers. Another significant drawback of APMC’s also arises from the fact that different states have different APMC acts as, intra-state trade in agricultural commodities is a state subject, whereas, inter-state trade is a subject of the Union government. Therefore, giving space to levy un-uniformed taxation and cess on farmers and denying equitable opportunities.

The disillusioned opposition is also trying to run a misinformation campaign blaming the Modi government of acting exclusively and not consulting the parliament before implementing these Bills. However, truth is far away from their nefarious misinformation campaign. For instance, the shortcomings of APMC’s were made abundantly clear in the observations made by the Standing Committee on Agriculture (2018-19). The standing committee on agriculture for the year 2018-2019 made some critical observations as far as APMCs are concerned, and have been reproduced below for the benefit of readers;

1. Most APMCs have a limited number of traders operating, which leads to cartelization and reduces competition.
2. Excessive deductions in the form of commission charges and market fees.
3. Traders, commission agents, and other functionaries organize themselves into associations, which do not allow easy entry of new persons into market yards, stifling competition.
4. The Acts are highly restrictive in promotion of multiple channels of marketing (such as more buyers, private markets, direct sale to businesses and retail consumers, and online transactions) and competition in the system. (Source: PRS ). It is also noteworthy here that, the standing committee on Agriculture had members from all parties and both houses, Eg. Dr Tapas Mandal, a TMC Parliamentarian from the lower house, Md. Badaruddoza Khan, CPI (Marxist) Parliamentarian, Sardar Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa, a Shiromani Akali Dal leader and Shri Mohd. Ali Khan from the Indian National Congress to name a few. Therefore, a mystery arises if these political parties, who are opposing the Bill now, were wrong then, or they are solely striving to create turmoil in the nation.

When they oppose the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020, that liberates our marginalised farmers and empowers them with the power of choice to bypass the APMCs, they are in totality holding the rights of every farmer hostage for their petty political gains. When they are employing misinformation campaign that MSP is being ended, they are in reality, creating unnecessary anxiety and fear among our marginalized farmers, as truth is distant from their hallucinations. The Agriculture Minister had made it clear on the floor of Parliament that MSP was here to remain and so as the AMPCs and was not mentioned in the legislation as it always was and is an administrative mechanism to ensure flexibility to increase and decrease MSP whenever the need arose.

Moreover, a farmer will only sell his produce to a private party or a company when he gets a better price than the one he is already getting through MSP, thus delegating a competitive market for the farmer’s benefit. Evidence also suggests that the number of farmers availing the MSP facility has only doubled in the recent years, for eg., during the UPA regime (2009-2014) 1.52 lakh metric ton of pulses were purchased under MSP, and in the just first five years of the NDA Government it propelled to 76.85 lakh metric tonnes. The first Bill also seeks to provide E-trading facilities to farmers, while prohibiting state governments from applying fee or cess on farmers or traders and E-trading platforms for trading outside of their designated trade area.

Similarly, the second Bill — The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020 — also provides sufficient countermeasures in safeguarding the farmers from market fluctuation thus empowering them economically. This Bill is a milestone attempt to double the farmer’s net income and at the same time, provide a legal framework for contract farming. The Bill makes it mandatory to pre-determine the price at which the buyer would procure the products and also offers sufficient countermeasures and the system of appellate authorities for dispute resolution in a time-bound manner. Both the Bills have provided adequate safeguards to the farmers while liberalising the sector.

The future of the agricultural sector in India lies in its ability to create efficient public-private partnerships as around 91 per cent of the total farm holding would belong to small and marginal farmers by 2030, who own less than 2 hectares of land. Shri Narendra Singh Tomar, the former Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmer Welfare, while citing the Agriculture Census had stated: “These small farms, though operating only on 44 per cent of land under cultivation, are the main providers of food and nutritional security to the nation, but have limited access to technology, inputs, credit, capital and markets.” Therefore, a suitable platform must be provided where an exchange of technology, experience and idea can happen and the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020, is historical in that manner.

The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020, seeks to liberate our marginalised farmers and empower them with the power of choice to bypass the APMCs

Also, it is against the spirit of integral humanism if we concentrate only on the end result and completely ignore the consequences or in this case, the welfare of our farmers. Let’s explore this issue through the available data. Where, on the one hand, foodgrain production increased from 51 million tonnes in 1950-51 to 252 million tonnes in 2015-16, its contribution to the country’s GDP, on the other hand, decreased from a massive 50 per cent to a meagre 15.4 per cent. When farmer suicides were taking the shape of a pandemic, India’s contribution in total production of pulses in the world increased to a staggering 25 per cent, i.e, one-fourth of the whole pulses produced in the world. Similarly, in 2013, when India was boasting a 25 per cent share in worldwide cotton production, one cotton farmer was committing suicide every eight hours. Additionally, the level of indebtedness among farmer families is also significantly higher in comparison to non-agricultural families, with Incidents of indebtedness at 52.5 per cent and 42.8 per cent for agricultural and non-agricultural families respectively.

Every piece of data that is available in the public domain suggests that there is something significantly wrong in our prior policies and bold steps are needed to overcome these issues arising out of the archaic and discriminatory systems. Therefore, it is necessary that the Upper House lives up to the expectation of citizens and do what it is meant to do, i.e, welfare of the citizens and more importantly welfare of our anna daatas in this case. And lastly, the three Bills will set a new precedence for new India that aspires governance to emerge out of the colonial mindset of being rulers to being enablers.