Farmers Movement Archive

Rajasthan farmers divided over agriculture bill

JAIPUR: Farmers across the state are divided over the Farmers Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill 2020 passed in both Houses of Parliament. Farmers with big landholding have welcomed the move as it will allow them to ship their produce far and wide without paying any mandi tax. However, those with small landholding feel that the bill will not have any impact on them as the corporate buyers don’t come to them leaving them at the mercy of agent raj in the mandi system. Dr Bharat Saran, a medical practitioner-cum-farmer at Chhitar-Ka-Par, Baytu in Barmer, said the mandi system was trustworthy for a region where farmers grow one crop in a year. “In the mandi system, the seller is a local and registered at the agriculture office that minimises the scope of any corruption or cheating. We are assured of the amount atleast equal to the MSP. However, selling your produce outside the system doesn’t have any guarantee of getting a fair price,” said Saran, who works at a government hospital in Barmer and owns six bighas. In the desert region, both farmers and buyers are limited in number due to one crop and poor yield per hectare. Almost 500 km from Barmer, Rameshwar Jat, a farmer in Hamirgarh in Bhilwara, holds a different view . Jat, who grows strawberry, sorghum, mustard and groundnut. Availability of water and fertile land has been giving him bumper crops for the last four years and he is confident that his crops could fetch him price much more than the MSP. “In the mandi system, the biggest hurdle is MSP which binds the buyer’s mind and he/she doesn’t go beyond it even if your produce is worthy of a double the price. I am happy that now I can directly deal with best buyers,” said Jat, supporting the farm bill in this season so that he could start approaching buyers for its Kharif crop. Raising concerns of negative effects of the bill, Rizwan Ahmed, a farmer who is owns 75 bighas at Baldara village in Anta, Baran, fears that it would lead to migration and mass unemployment in the rural areas. “My region in the state is among the most fertile and here almost 60% of farmers does farming on leased land. Multinational corporates would easily replace their landless farmers by giving high price to the owner. This issue should be addressed else it will backfire the rural economy,” said Ahmed. Its however win-win situation in the most fertile region of the state — Hanumangarh and Sri Ganganagar — where the average landholding size is bigger than the rest of the state.

The Times of India

2020-09-23

Jaipur