Thousands of farmers from Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh have been protesting at Delhi borders because final week, demanding for a rollback of new farm laws. Farmers claim that the new farm laws will hit their revenue, as these will at some point finish the Minimum Support Price (MSP) technique and lead to the corporatization of farming. “In states having weak APMC infrastructure, farmers are forced to sell outside mandis and generally they realise a price much lower than the MSP,” Siraj Hussain, former Union Agriculture Secretary, told The Spuzz Online.
Though Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other ministers have assured that the MSP will continue irrespective of the new laws, farmers have raised issues. The government can usually problem written orders that procurement of wheat and rice at MSP will continue, Siraj Hussain added, who is also a Visiting Senior Fellow at ICRIER. “However, I am not sure that the government would like to give a similar assurance about other crops,” he additional mentioned.
Verbal promises will not perform
The farmers of Punjab and Haryana massively rely on MSP as more than 90 per cent of mandi arrivals of wheat and paddy are procured by government agencies at MSP in each states. Farmers are demanding legal status for MSP since Mandis are regulated by the state government, and the Union government extends economic assistance to the state governments. “At least, we need an executive order for this, verbal promises won’t work. Farmers need statutory support,” Shiv Kumar Sharma, President, Rashtriya Kisan Mahashangha, told The Spuzz Online.
Dispute resolution authority
Apart from the MSP problem, there are other troubles also, that are haunting the farmers. One of them is the SDM court becoming the final authority. Farmers are demanding that SDM court need to not be the final authority for all troubles connected to the case of resentment. “We should be allowed to approach higher courts on this issue and should be given escalation under the theory of Natural Justice,” Shiv Kumar Sharma added, who is also a Member of Sanyukt Kisan Manch.
Local generate, worldwide clients
Further, the farmers are of the opinion that the substantial availability of spurious and fake agri input in the market place due to the contract amongst farmer and procurer becoming primarily based on the high quality, grades, and regular, it will drain farmers’ revenue and pollute the atmosphere. “We need best of the technology and agri input to be available of global standard, for which we need a robust regulatory system for the crop protection and crop solutions sector,” Shiv Kumar Sharma additional mentioned.
Meanwhile, Union agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar and railways minister Piyush Goyal are holding talks with leaders of farmer unions. Nevertheless, at this moment, the outcomes of the talks look tricky to drive consensus amongst the farmers and the government.