Farmers Movement Archive

‘Quick measures part of long term move to end MSP regime’

Bathinda/Amritsar: Despite the Union agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar assuring farmers that the minimum support price (MSP) of crops will not be diluted and all three ordinances issued by the Centre were in their favour, farmers’ bodies suspect they will be the ultimate loser in the long run. Many farm organisations claimed that the government may continue with the MSP regime for one or two seasons but eventually it will be done away with. Many of Punjab-based peasant outfits are now following the line takjen by the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee (AIKSCC), a conglomerate of over 200 farmer bodies across the country, which has already given call for opposing the ordinances. “Recent decisions of the Union government to wind up the APMC Act, to begin e-national agriculture market (e-NAM) networking, allowing inter-state sale, inviting corporates to source crops from fields and allowing them to enter into contract farming will spell doom for peasantry,” alleged Bharatiya Kisan Union (Ekta Dakaunda) general secretary Jagmohan Singh, an active member of AIKSCC. “With the mandis winding up, farmers will not get the benefit of procurement and assured rates. They will be subjected to the diktats of the big purchasers who will negotiate on the strength of e-NAM rates to lower the prices in all areas. Farming contracts for sowing will drastically reduce the capacity of small peasants, landless share croppers and farm labour to negotiate,” he claimed. On the Farming Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Ordinance, Jamhuri Kisan Sabha president Satnam Singh Ajnala claimed that the black days of the farming sector had begun. “The ordinance will allow hoarding and blackmarketing of farm produce. The hoarders will sell the same crop back to the end-users, including farmers, at much higher price later,” he claimed. Ajnala said the farmers wouldn’t have the protection under the Essential Commodities Act, 1955, which puts a cap on traders’ stocking foodgrains. Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee president Satnam Singh Pannu alleged that the Union cabinet had approved the ordinance under pressure of the World Bank and World Trade Organization (WTO). “The government says it is giving farmers a free hand to sell their produce anywhere, but it is not going to happen. The farmers may be given some benefit in the beginning but later they will be plundered,” he alleged. Gurdaspur farmer Gurmeet Singh Nizampur, who owns over 28 acres of land, said, “I have heard about some concessions are now being given to farmers by the government which will benefit us, but I don’t know the details.”

The Times of India

2020-06-08

Chandigarh