this is one of the busiest highways
leading to delhi it's been blocked for
weeks tens of thousands of farmers from
the northern states of india have
marched to the capital city to protest
farming reforms
they've covered at least five major
highways around the city
the police met them with tear gas and
water cannons but they made it through
and have now set up camp in and around
delhi
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this is all happening because prime
minister modi's government has passed
new farming laws that will change how
the agricultural industry has worked for
decades
and in a country of 1.4 billion people
where agricultural workers make up half
of the labor force the repercussions of
those laws
could be devastating
in the 1960s india a recently
independent country was struggling to
produce enough food for its citizens
a string of droughts made things worse
causing devastating vomits
so the government stepped in to
modernize farming and increase the food
supply in what was called the green
revolution they brought in u.s advisors
to help boost the production of rice and
wheat together they ended up over using
chemical fertilizers pesticides and
irrigation causing large plots of land
to become infertile
many crops suffered some nearly
disappeared but rice and wheat
production soared and soon india went
from having a food crisis
to having a food surplus
it was in this context that india also
developed a nationwide food marketing
system to ensure fair prices it's a
complex system and it differs from state
to state but here's one way to
understand it
it starts with farmers bringing their
crops here to wholesale markets locally
known as mundi's the farmers then sell
those crops to traders through open
auctions with transparent pricing prices
can also be informed by the minimum
support price or msp a government price
for crops like rice cotton wheat the
government only buys a couple of crops
at these prices in certain states but
those prices can still serve as a
benchmark the crops then go to secondary
market or are stored by the buyers
before they are sent out for future
sales
it's not a perfect system though local
traders
do end up colluding with each other uh
the auctions actually are not
competitive bidding
but for the most part the system works
on a large scale because there's
oversight that aims to protect farmers
by giving them market standards they've
been designed keeping in mind the fact
that farmers are the weakest link and
they can be exploited in numerous ways
over the years state reforms have
gradually redefined and regulated
markets in different ways across india
in punjab and haryana for example they
have become a vital part of the industry
and farmers here have the highest
incomes in the country but in the state
of bihar markets were eliminated in 2006
and the farmers here are still ranked
the poorest in india by income and all
of this is happening while there's a
bigger farming crisis the money in
farming is disappearing since the days
of the green revolution agriculture has
gone from accounting for nearly 50
percent of the economy to just 15
meaning millions of farmers already have
trouble making ends meet in this
shrinking economy
more than half of india's farming
households are in debt and this debt has
contributed to a suicide crisis
in the last two years more than 20 000
farmers have died by suicide
because of this economic hardship
farmers have been asking for reforms for
decades but this year instead of
providing more protections for this
vulnerable community the central
government went in the opposite
direction and farmers fear that the
direction in which the reforms are
happening are actually a direction of
dismantling of the msp
so let's take a look at these three
farming acts that spark the protest
each of them deregulates a different
part of the system the first act creates
free unregulated trade spaces outside
the markets the laws in these spaces
would override wholesale market rules
and although a lot of trade takes place
outside already what happens in the
markets remains a benchmark across the
industry but this act will create two
parallel markets with very different
rules one with oversight and another
that creates room for big corporate
players to come in unregulated and in
this dual market structure the players
in the regulated markets are bound to
move out and operate in the deregulated
spaces and that is where farmers are
going to lose out when these traditional
spaces collapse onto themselves the
second act creates a framework for
contract farming deals any business
agreements would be strictly between
farmers and traders with little
oversight giving farmers few options to
fight bad deals as these agreements
increase outside of wholesale markets
they could further fragment the market
and leave small farmers dependent on
terms set by big corporations or be cut
out of the industry altogether
the third act affects a different part
of the chain it eliminates the storage
limits previously set by the government
to control prices unlimited storage
means that anyone with enough money can
stock up the problem is without
oversight they can also start dictating
prices all together the three acts
invite big players into a fragmented and
deregulated market that could lead to
volatile prices for farmers and by
deregulating the markets the government
has also put out a message in the same
breath essentially saying that they
think farmers don't need any protection
anymore from the government
on june 3 2020 when the government
announced the farming reforms it didn't
take long for the impact to be felt on
the ground
wholesale markets around the country
have already seen fewer crops arrive in
their market yards in the state of
madhya pradesh more than 40 markets have
lost business trading has moved out of
regulated market spaces and it is not as
though good prices are being fetched by
farmers
and this is the context in which farmers
anger has to be understood they didn't
get what they wanted and what was thrust
down upon them is very different from
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