What are the three Agri Bills passed and why is there a protest?

 

Whenever farmers in bulk come to Delhi, they come with a valid reason. A protest basically which is in accordance with the decision of the government. And like always, the police come in action with lathi charge on those farmers. Everything goes on its way where the protest is being ignored and politics takes the main frame.

Same happened this time. The BJP led government brought three bills. Farmers from Haryana, Punjab and Western Uttar Pradesh are protesting at a large scale. The BJP alliance Harshimrat Kaur resigned from the cabinet showing her stand against the bills. Congress is also protesting. Farmers are the biggest vote bank in India. If that is the case, why then the center is bringing a bill which will be not beneficial for farmers. Why are there no protests in other parts of the country? Let us know more on the bills and the farmer’s demand.

What are the 3 bills?

1 – Essential Commodity Amendment Bill – This bill was introduced in 1955. The main objective of this bill was that the Government would decide how much storage could be given for a particular commodity. This bill was basically introduced to stop black marketing. There is a change introduced recently which states that only during disaster, the government would decide on the storage front whereas in other time there is no limitation in the storage. During any disaster, the government would decide how much commodity could be stored.

2 – Farmer’s Produce Trade and Commerce – According to this bill the government has given freedom to farmer’s that apart from Agriculture Produce Market Committee (APMC) broad, farmers can sell their produces elsewhere. And anyone can but from farmers.

3 – Farmers Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill – According to this bill, before farming, farmers can deal with the buyer on how much could be the price. This bill also speaks about contract farming.

All these 3 bills were temporarily passed in June 2020 with an ordinance from President. This happens rarely when the Parliament is not operative. When the Parliament is operative, then ordinance and if the Parliament is running smooth, then it called the bill which is passed both from Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. An ordinance is soon passed as a bill once the Parliament starts operation. And this is what happened 2 days back.

Looking into a broader perspective, the protest is not for all three bills but is for only one bill which is the Farmer’s Produce Trade and Commerce. The bill which says that farmers can sell their produces outside of APMC. Farmers are protesting stating that why was the APMC formed and today the importance of APMC is going to decline. Yes, this might happen when there will be direct deal between farmers and buyers.

After Independence somewhere in 1950, the APMC act was introduced. That was a time when farmers were under huge debt from private money lenders. And were unable to pay that. The money lenders however used to take the farm produces from the farmers if they were unable to pay back. Because of this practice, the money lenders happened to run a monopoly in the market. To overcome this situation, state governments introduced APMC act according to which any farmers could not sell the produces apart from APMC. Here as well only those having license can buy. The buyers would bid on the produces so that farmers could get maximum profit.

How the APMC operates?

Usually a farmer would take his productions to APMC where he would give all his produces to the shops there. These shops were operated by commission agents. The commission agents would sell the products by an auction and would give back the money to the farmers. Some 2.5% commission is charged by the commission agents having shops in the APMC. The buyers would finally sell the products to respective end customers like mills, factories, etc. With times many loopholes were created, and the buyers and commission agents would sell the products at a high price and the farmers go in loss.

The bill for which the protest is going on clearly states that the APMC is not going to be closed. But the farmers would be given free hands in selling their produces either in APMC or outside of APMC.

My View – I completely support this bill. Farmers are given free hands to sell their products to the buyers. And they can decide the price. Any farmer who wants to go to APMC also has the option to go. In an overall approach, I believe that the farmers could get a better price.