Farmers Bills Boon or Bane : Vishal Singh

: In recent days, agitation by farmers in various parts of the country can be observed. These are due to the introduction of two new bills i.e. “The Farmer’s Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020” and “The Farmer’s (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020” in the lower house by the Union Minister of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare, Rural Development & Panchayati Raj, Shri Narendra Singh.

The introduction of the bill is based on the concept of “One India, One Agricultural Market”. It aims at opening the gates for farmers to the corporate world to create additional trading opportunities beyond the APMC (Agriculture produce market committee) market yards to help farmers to get remunerative prices due to additional competition. If we talk about the first bill which is:

1. The Farmer’s Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020

There were some merits of these bill and highly affecting demerits of this bill first we'll talk about merits. 

●MERIT

● Here farmers have better option for their produce to sell at good prices beyond APMC anywhere in India. 

● It will increase the availability of options to sell their produce. 

● Here the concept of (one nation one market) will absolutely work because due to no trade barriers

● NOW DEMERITS OF THIS BILL 

● The most devastating thing of this bill is that it will end up the MSP means minimum support price. And literally it directly affect the farmers produce prices in the market. 

● Now due the elimination of middle man farmers directly sell their produce to cooperates And due to this traders have high power to extort farmers. 

● Now it will end up the regulatory markets means Mandi Systems. So due to this there will be highly fluctuation occur in market. Because then there is no option or alternative available to farmers to sell their produce at appropriate price.

2. The Farmer’s Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020

● MERITS 

● In this bill the crops were under the agreement of the essential commodity act. 

● It will help farmers with exploration of their produce in the market with multinational companies who food products. 

● DEMERITS 

● Small And Marginal farmers may be deprived of sponsors. 

● It will gave freedom to cooperates and traders not to farmers because there is No MSP mentioned in this bill so due to this there is no price barrier set in the market. Due to this Small And Marginal farmers were the prey for the cooperates in case of price and other market activities. 

● So due to these Demerits all empowerment And protection of farmers were lost in the market

3.The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill, 2020

● MERITS 

●It helps both farmers as well as consumers in case of price stability. 

● It will modernize the new technology and investment and this helps to stable the supply chain because due to good investment in agriculture sector pull up in various necessities. 

● In will encourage the private sector due to this agriculture sector will pull up and farmers were profited in their yields and other agricultural equipments. 

● DEMERITS 

● n this price of the produce will be decided by cooperates so there is highly chance for extortion of farmers in market.

● The equilibrium of the small and marginal farmers were not satisfied because there is no availability of opportunities for them to grow

AT LAST CONCLUSION

 If we summarise then the critic of the bill is that in this bill the profit margin would be less and vicious margin is high this bill will totally affect the life of the farmers due to certain unnecessary points that were not included in this bill. Government should must take necessary steps to ensure farmers with their produce price. 

Government have some interference in this because agriculture sector is the only sector in India which generates highly employment and contribute highly towards GDP and in Economy Without interference many small and marginal farmers were not endulge in agriculture activities because they were highly extorted by cooperates. 

So this bill totally points towards bane not boon because of their irresponsible points that were added by the government without any highly consultant and at ground level without farmers consultant. So without any proper management implementation of these bills were highly wrong and here the consequences will highly devastating for agricultural sector. 

BY VISHAL SINGH STUDENT ACTIVIST LUCKNOW UNIVERSITY