Rajnath Singh, Narendra Singh Tomar hold meeting with agriculture experts on farm laws

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Minister of Agriculture and Farmer Welfare Narendra Singh Tomar held a meeting with agriculture experts on Tuesday to discuss the new Farm Laws, the bills of which were passed in both the house of parliament in September, followed by President Ram Nath Konvind's assent.

One of the attendees of the meeting claimed farmers in Haryana are happy over the farm laws.

"In Haryana, farmers are really happy with the farm laws as these laws fulfil their long-pending demand that they should be allowed to sell their produce freely anywhere across the country at the cost they want to sell it," said Mohanji Saxena, Ayurvet Research Foundation, Sonepat.

Sanjeev Chadha, MD, National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd addressing the reporters said that these Laws will provide freedom to farmers to sell their produce anywhere adding that they can sell it even to small mandis set up by Farmer Producer Orgs (FPOs) and can get a good rate without paying mandi fee.

Whereas, President of National Seed Association of India (NSAI) M Prabhakar Rao said, "the three farm laws introduced by the Centre will boost the development of the seed industry. It will benefit lakhs of farmers involved in the seed industry, they are happy with the decision".

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Politics over the farm laws

The parliament passed three farm laws in the monsoon session amid much chaos and resentment from the opposition. The Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020 aims at freeing the farmers from the constraints of the state Agriculture Produce Market Committees whereby they would be able to sell their produce anywhere. Meanwhile, The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020 protects and empowers farmers to engage with processors, wholesalers, large retailers, exporters for farm services. This entails the provision of contract farming. On the other hand, The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020 specifies that the supply of foodstuffs including cereals, pulses, potato, edible oilseeds, and oils shall be regulated only under exceptional circumstances.

However, the opposition especially Congress orchestrated massive protests across the country against the farm laws with their leader Rahul Gandhi targeting the Centre and claiming that the new laws will affect the MSP mechanism even as the Centre on multiple occasions assured that the MSP mechanism will not have any impact after the implementation of the farm laws. 

Congress even alleged that the implementation of the laws will leave farmers at the mercy of the corporates and private entities and is also trying to identify ways to bypass the laws in the states where their government is in power. However, the Centre assured that the new laws will free the farmers from being compulsively dependent on the APMC markets as the farmers will be able to sell their produce outside of the Mandis without the involvement of middlemen which will lead to more revenue for the farmers, while also having the doors open to sell through Mandis if they intend to.

(With ANI inputs)

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