Two farm bills have sailed through both Houses of Parliament, and the nod from the President to turn the legislation into a law would follow. Styled as the Farmer’s Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020, and the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020, the legislation is seen and projected as a historic farm reform exercise by the Modi government. A related legislation will be presented in the Rajya Sabha on Monday for its passage.
The farm legislation will naturally have its pros and cons at the implementation level, as had happened in the case of the GST. The Government naturally feels the Bill is good for farmers as it will end the play of middlemen, and create a new mechanism to enable farmers to sell their products directly to the marketing agencies. The Opposition fears that farms would be sold out to the corporate; that the minimum support price (MSP) system would be abolished and farmers put to serious disadvantage on many fronts. This apart, the farmers and workers in Punjab and Haryana are up in arms, also over a scenario of the mandis (markets) becoming dysfunctional as products would be taken directly from farms by marketing agencies. This will lead to large-scale job losses, they say.
Notably, the opposition to the legislation comes from the Shiromani Akali Dal, a firm ally of the BJP for many years, and from the BJD of Odisha and TRS of Telangana, both parties having close understanding in parliament with the NDA on most occasions in the past. The Left too opposes it alongside the Congress. The NDA this time got the backing instead from the YSR Congress and the AIADMK. In the current circumstances, there is little likelihood of a nationwide mass protest by farmers, as the Covid-linked restrictions are in place. Much of the details of the new legislation are still not in the public realm. Hence a detailed assessment of the pluses and minuses will take time. Many are, in part, presuming and assuming things.
Agriculture sector reforms are long overdue; rather reforms had never been attempted in a serious manner by successive governments. The Modi government has brought about market reforms through the GST, and India had economic reforms in the 1990s. Farmers continue to be an exploited lot by middlemen and other vested interests. They do not get even 20 percent of the actual price on which a product is sold in markets. Such is the play of vested interests. It remains to be seen how things will change post the Farm Act of 2020.