30/09/2020
Farmer’s pain in vain
The farmer has the ability to earn money from the mud. They are the ones that work in acres, not in hours. They are the son of the soil. If we are eating healthy today, farmers are the reason. Without them we have no existence, without farmers, mankind cannot progress, still, the farmers face many difficulties, and this time the government has introduced new techniques to increase the problem of farmers. Three farm bills — the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill (commonly referred to as the APMC Bypass Bill), and the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill — were cleared by Parliament amid protests from the Opposition. On papers all the schemes are good but the ground reality is totally different. I will not explain the bill, I will mention the problems of the bill and why the farmers are protesting.
The Farmers Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill will lead to the closure of existing APMC mandi because for private companies there will be no tax in private mandi, while if they approach APMC they have to pay the tax to the government which will ultimately lead in the closure of APMC, because there is a high cost to maintain APMC. Another problem is small farmers may find it difficult to sell their crops to other states as of transport charge and more than 85% percent of farmers are small which means they have less than 2-hectare land and to survive in private mandi farmer need a strong negotiator.
The contract farming bill will result in the removal of MSP and the government will have no control over it. If the government link MSP with this bill, it will result in favor of farmers.
The essential commodities bill: Unlimited stocking can lead to artificial price fluctuation and low prices for farmers after harvest,
Will the farm bills benefit farmers? Who will gain and who occurs loss?? Isn’t it an injustice to farmers???