Thousands of farmers have been camping at Delhi`s border crossings since November last year, demanding the repeal of three agricultural laws – the Agricultural Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Moderation) Act, 2020; the Agreement on Strengthening and Protecting Farmers in Agricultural Price Coverage and Services 2020; and the Essential Products Amendment Act, 2020. They also called for a legal guarantee of minimum support prices (MSP) for their crops. They were also concerned that this would mean the abolition of the MSP. Critics also said the contractual system would leave marginal small farmers vulnerable to exploitation by large companies unless selling prices continue to be regulated, as was the case before the new law came into force. Farmers` opposition: Farmers` associations say the law is designed to suit “big business that wants to dominate India`s food and agricultural activities” and will weaken farmers` bargaining power. Large private companies, exporters, wholesalers and processors can also gain an advantage. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi attacked the government in Lok Sabha on April 20, 2015. He made a speech during a discussion on the agricultural situation and said: “. Their government ignores the problems of the peasants and does not listen to the voice of the workers. Their government is the government of the industrialists. Your government is a government of great people. Costume boat ki sarkar hai.
We all understand that. On the one hand, you weaken the peasants and workers, and if they are able to stand, you will beat them with the axe of your regulation. Indian farmers fear that under the new agricultural laws in 2020, they will lose more than they could win, bringing protest to the streets. Indian farmers currently have the right to sell their products, mainly wheat and rice, to the government at a Guaranteed Minimum Support Price (MSP) which is regularly set each year. The MSP system is largely managed with confidence. Policymakers can effectively dismantle it by setting the price so low that no farmer wants to sell, or by not providing accessible product collection centers. In many parts of India, for example, farmers are now being told that they can sell their grain at a certain price, but there is no place near them to sell it. (d) Abolition of the market fee: According to the law, state governments are prohibited from charging farmers, traders and electronic trading platforms market fees or levies for trade in agricultural products in a “foreign trade zone”. Farmers` opposition: States will lose revenue because they will not be able to charge “Mandi fees” if farmers sell their products outside the markets registered by the Agricultural Products Market Committee (APMC).
In addition, the commissionaires will lose if all the agricultural trade leaves Mandis. I believe that large companies are needed in agricultural markets. And I think the Indian government`s new laws would have been more acceptable if policymakers had been sensitive to the need to enforce antitrust law to improve the rules of the game for the millions of farmers who would be competing with a few big companies. Even in the supposed bastion of the free market in the United States, prominent jurists such as Eric Posner, Suresh Naidu, Glen Weyl and Cass Sunstein have expressed concern about the need for antitrust laws to regulate monopolies such as large corporate buyers.