CHAOS IN THE MANDIS

The first kharif season after deregulation of the agriculture market is underway. The government has started procuring paddy at minimum support price, even before the designated period. For the largest private trade in India, this is a time of anxiety. How is the market treating farmers? SHAGUN KAPIL visits mandis in Punjab and Haryana only to find that the market has become even more unfavourable for farmers

- SHAGUN KAPIL

THE KHARIF harvest season this time was not only unusual, but also unprecedented. Unusual, because the Union government advanced the procurement of kharif paddy from the usual October 1 to September 26. Unprecedented, because this is the first marketing season after the government deregulated the agriculture market, now being celebrated as “one country, one market”. The rapid pace at which the markets were deregulated was also unparalleled.

On September 20, Parliament passed three agriculture-related bills: the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020, which allows the sale of agricultural produce outside the mandis or markets regulated by the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committees (APMCs) and constituted by different state legislations; the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and the Farm Services Bill, 2020, that facilitates contract farming; and, The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill 2020, that deregulates production, supply, distribution of food items like cereals, pulses, potatoes, onion and edible oilseeds. Among the three, the first two are being contested intensely by farmers, political parties and traders.

In less than 100 hours of Parliament passing these laws amid disruptions in both the houses, the President of India approved the laws. In less than 48 hours of the President’s assent despite petitions by Parliament members not to do so, the Union government published them in the gazette on September 27. In these hours, farmers were out on the streets protesting against the laws. They fear dilution of the government’s minimum support price for crops and procurement regime and a potential takeover of the market by corporate bodies. Political parties held massive rallies; and, the ruling National Democratic Alliance even lost support of an alliance member, the Punjab-based regional party Shiromani Akali Dal.