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Imposing New Inequities
Without an appropriate regulatory mechanism, deregulation is detrimental to farmers’ interests.
The central government has unilaterally pushed ahead the passage of the three farm bills in a manner that falls short of democratic procedure. These bills, namely the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020, the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020, and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill, 2020, have opened up agricultural marketing and trade to facilitate a greater participation and role for the private and corporate sectors.
The liberalisation of agricultural marketing is touted to enable better price realisation that is supposed to favour the farmers, but in effect these new arrangements threaten to weaken the existing system of government procurement at guaranteed prices at APMC (Agricultural Produce Market Committee) mandis. Moreover, in the absence of any regulatory mechanism that is necessary to ensure a level playing field, agricultural marketing reforms could only be detrimental to the interests of the majority of farmers.
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