You Sow That You Reap, And Then You Reap That You Sow
Will Rogers, an American stage and film actor and humourist once said “The farmer has to be an optimist or he wouldn’t still be a farmer.” Let’s not snatch that optimism from him. The farmer crisis is neither new nor is unique. Its reasons and its debilitating effects are well documented through the years. It is not agriculture alone that is in distress but the entire rural economy is. In as much as addressing the farmer crisis, we must address the crisis of the rural economy too. Are higher Minimum Support Prices (MSP)’s and Cash transfers the answer? Several initiatives have been taken by successive governments to mitigate the crisis, but with little success.
The protests have only increased in the last decade for a variety of reasons. Various state governments even made direct cash transfers and gave loan waivers to mitigate their plight. The government at the centre recently approved three farmer bills that it claims will better the lives of the farmers. However, the opposition chose to cry foul with the content, intent and execution. They alleged that the process of passing the bills was not democratic enough, passed as it was by a voice vote and that they may not meet established parliamentary procedures. They alleged, whereas agriculture and trade were state subjects, they never consulted the States and that even the farmers were not on board or their voices were heard.
Should there be a protest at all if the Bills were passed for an ultimate good? What do they offer the farmer? Understanding the Bills in entirety and their possible outcomes is important if these questions were to be answered. The boundary conditions for their legislation too must be understood. There are small farmers with as little as half to one acre holding and there are large farmers who lord over hundreds of acres and cornering a maximum of benefits as well. Can the laws then be the same for both? Several narratives followed both by experts and activists. In that din however, the farmers cries were drowned.
11.2% of all suicides in India are by farmers. Anti-farmer laws, high debt burdens, poor government policies, corruption in subsidies, crop failure, public mental health, personal issues and family problems, all take a toll on farmers. Modern farming needs technology as much as it needs water, farming equipment, storage facilities, transportation and the benevolence of weather Gods among others. A small farmer can afford nothing of them. Both cash crops and lesser yield varieties have been hit badly. While low international prices hit exports, imports hit prices at home. Absence of storage, cold chains and limited connectivity have only pushed the farmers to the wall.
It is in this context that the government brought about three farmer bills this September. The first, the ‘Farmers Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill’ promotes ‘One Nation-one market’ concept allowing farmers to sell the produce anywhere in the country. This is expected to end the monopoly of ‘Agricultural Produce Market Committees (APMCs), the middlemen and the State’s hegemony. Are the APMCs the villain? Many APMCs have helped small farmers not just to sell the produce but also to know the prices & production choices in the past. Whether, the farmer Bill will weaken the APMC and eventually render it redundant, must be a subject of studious consideration. Can these Bills assure a guarantee that the farmers’ income will be increased? In Bihar, when the state abolished APMCs in 2006, farmers actually got lower prices for their produce than the MSP. Would not strengthening the APMCs, instead of transferring the responsibility to private entities have been a better option?
It is not as if everything is wrong with the Bills. The consumers and the farmers could benefit when the produce is distributed all over the country based on a price-supply-demand metric. Demand and Consumption determine prices. A farmer is rendered helpless when growing potatoes, onions or vegetables, not knowing how many more are growing them leading to a glut in the market, amidst crashing prices even as the Govt stands mute witness to dumping them on highways in the absence of adequate support prices. This Bill certainly has some answers here.
Allowing the private sector players in the agricultural industry can attract investments which can modernise and improve the infrastructure. Best price for the produce may fetch better returns for farmers though the flip side is equally true, where the private cartels bring down the prices.
The second, ‘Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill’ allows contract farming empowering farmers to engage with wholesalers, exporters etc. directly, so that they get an assured price even before sowing the crop. The practice is prevalent even today, where a farmer sells his produce to a certain ‘Seth’ in the supply chain, for a price that is sometimes agreed and sometimes forced. Some companies may even provide seeds, fertilisers and other requirements which can reduce the burden of input costs for farmers. Big agricultural companies like Monsanto Co., DuPont Co talk of "prescriptive planting" as the next big revolution on the farm where data gathered by tractors and other machinery is fed into computers that tell farmers how to increase their output of crops like corn and soybeans. The downside however is, it may turn farmers into slaves and may force small farmers out of business.
The third ‘Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill’ excludes pulses, oil-seeds, onions and some other products from the essential commodities list, thereby removing even their storage restrictions. This may help stabilise their prices. In commercial terms, if the onion supply is more than the demand, they will be cold stored to prevent a price fall. That creation of such facilities adds to the overall cost is another matter. Will it not, on the other hand, on removing the restrictions on the storage of some food grains lead to more imports at cheaper prices which could affect the domestic farmers? The big businesses may store the food grains to increase prices artificially, exploiting both farmers and consumers pushing the ball squarely into the government’s court, ultimately seeking a price regulation. Was building MSP into the Bills not prudent then? The embers would have been quelled to a large extent.
That the Bills were passed without a debate has only meant increased mistrust between the government and the farmers. That big companies are allowed into agriculture is seen as a death knell for small farmers. Will the implementation also be a challenge since even the States were not a part of the discussion? Time will tell.
This was a huge opportunity for the government to reform the agriculture sector. It tried doing it through the Bills. An important question to ponder is, if it has brought upon itself equally huge challenges in implementation, by not adequately addressing the concerns of the most important stake holders the farmers? Would it not have been a better idea to reform the APMC’s as well through a Bill, so they assisted the small farmers better? Most of the people in the world are poor and earn their living from agriculture. Hence by reforming agriculture, one can reform poverty.
