Farmers Movement Archive

‘Booklet on Big Ag reply to Narendra Singh Tomar ’

BATHINDA: The farmer unions have come out with a booklet to tell central agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar what he has been asking them: “Krishi kanuno me kala kya (what’s black in the farm laws)?” Based on an identical title by senior lawyer Joginder Singh Toor, the booklet released on Holi at Delhi’s agitation site of Singhu border also calculates the minimum support price (MSP) of various crops. A part of its text is from ‘How Big Ag ate up America’—inferences of US-based IITian Bedabrata Pain’s 10,000-kilometre road trip across America to find how its small farmers had gone down since the US opened its agriculture sector to the corporates. The farmer unions have printed 10,000 copies of the 84-pages booklet for distribution. Farmer unionist Gurnam Singh Charuni said: “The agriculture ministers has asked us repeatedly to point out what we see as black in the laws, and even though we have answered clause by clause, repeatedly, now we have a written document of answers.” Farmer unionist Jagmohan Singh said: Now it’s time for Tomar to answer our question: ‘What is of farmers’ benefit in these laws?” Charuni said: “Toor’s contribution is to explain legal flaws in the laws. For instance, for decades the MSP was fixed far below the input cost, even as the committee of farm scientist M S Swaminathan recommended 50% profit over input cost by adding all the elements. The central government claims to have put these laws on hold for 18 months, while we challenge its very jurisdiction on the subject of making these laws. If we agree to the amendments, it’ll be like accepting the government’s jurisdiction on the farm sector, which is what we oppose.”

The Times of India

2021-03-31

Chandigarh