Lucrative policy that bestows the “right to choose” for

Indian farmers.
When pragmatism meets courage and political will, the doors of
sustainability opens up and the dream of development lightens.
Agriculture, a sector in which more than half of Indian population works
for, has been suffering because of your over-protectionist and often
dubious policies. Our myopic and unpragmatic framework for
agricultural welfare pushed the farmers, backbone of the nation, into
perpetual chaos. The need for agriculture reforms is unexplainably
crucial. The long pending agriculture reforms, which were ignored
during the 1991 economic liberalization has now finally materialized.
Three new laws introduced this month is building pillars of
sustainability and, more importantly, building a bond of trust between
the systems and farmers. The newly built atmosphere euphoria of
farmers is followed by 7 decades encapsulation and incarceration of
idiocy and preposterousness.
In India, the farmers never have the right to choose, a right which is
fundamentally bestowed upon every citizen through the constitution and
directive principles. Farmers are forced to sell their crops only to the
government owned system called the agriculture produce and market
committee (APMC). APMC was brought in by the lal bahadur sastri’s
Prime Ministery, where the government intended to break the chains of
bankruptcy of farmers and ensure a proper price is given to the farmer’s
produce. In other words, farmers were protected from preying lenders
and often condescending buyers. This law lays down a system where in
the farmers can sell their produce only to the government regulated and
owned Mandis at a government prescribed price called the minimum
support price (MSP). However, this mechanism, over the period of time,
turned out to be counterproductive and often a looting machine for the
elite.
The monopoly of the institution resulted into higher corruption, thriving
mafia and bureaucratic red tape which shackled the farmers. For
example, if a farmer brings in tomatoes (perishable product) for selling
in the APMCs, the farmer is forced to sell below the market price. The
farmer can neither approach other APMC as the nexus of APMC mafia
have black market deals nor can he/she wait for the police as tomatoes in
essence rot in few days. Hence, the farmers are forced to sell below the
price. This on one hand prevented the government’s ambitious goal of
doubling the farmers’ income to materialize, while also fueling the
suicide rates of farmers.
Hence, the federal government of India brought in a new act called the
“Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation)
Bill, 2020” which allows the farmers to sell their products outside the
mandis to the private organizations. It also allows a barrier free inter-
state trade of agriculture produce while also minimizing the government
intervention. The government also brought down the cost of
transportation very significantly and ruled out any imposition of taxes on
private entities who wish to buy farmer produce and invest into the
agriculture technology. Aiding this act, the government has also brought
in another act called as “The Farmer (Empowerment and Protection)
Agreement of Price Agreement act 2020”. This act allows contract
farming, reduce the cost of marketing, transfer of uncertainty risk to the
farmers and promotion of usage of modern technology. Moreover, the
famers can now sell their produce without any middleman and any
interferences of the elite class of the society. The government brought in
new amendments to the essential commodities act 2020 where in now
the government will control the prices only during the time of war,
famine or unprecedented amount of price raise (100% for non-
perishables and 50% for vegetables and fruits). This effectively
decreases the red tape and brings in predictability while also lets the free
hand economics run the industry.
This month marks the best agriculture reforms which India has ever seen
since independence. Moreover, these policies, for the first time, consider
sustainability and technological based development. The three laws
mark the biggest economic reforms since the 1991, in fact, it is
considered as a larger reform than the 1991 economic reforms. In other
words, these new laws significantly ease the burden of the famers,
bringing in the hope of sustainability and adaptability.