Farmers Movement Archive

Kerala drafting own farm law, says agriculture minister

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The government is in the process of framing a law as an alternative to the farm laws amended by the Centre, agriculture minister V S Sunil Kumar said in the assembly. Replying to the calling attention motion in this regard by MLA C K Saseendran, he said that the state is exploring all possible ways on how to provide relief to farmers from the black laws passed by the Centre. He said that the committee chaired by the agriculture production commissioner and co-chaired by the law secretary are drafting the law and the cabinet would consider it after which it would be placed in the assembly. He said that the Centre’s laws were framed only to help the corporate firms while the LDF government in the state had taken several steps since 2016, to help farmers. The farmers’ welfare board, minimum support price for 16 varieties of vegetables and farmers’ pension are a few among those, the minister said. He said that the farm laws are detrimental to the agriculture sector of the whole country and specifically to the state in many ways. Through the laws, the Centre has washed its hands off from ensuring that the farmers receive the minimum support price for their produce. Instead, the government has handed over the powers to the corporate firms to decide the prices in a similar way it did in the case of petroleum products, he said. He said that the genetically-modified seeds that have been banned in the state are also likely to come back as the agreement will be between the farmers and the corporates.

The Times of India

2021-01-13

Thiruvananthapuram