What Bangladesh can learn from Delhi farmers

Despite a chilly winter and high Covid-19 infections in Delhi, millions of farmers, men and women, walked miles after miles to reach the Singur border near Delhi, and have been protesting for 12 days. Some arrived by tractors from Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh. 

Police put up barricades and dug roads to stop them, but to no avail. They remain adamant in their opposition to the central government's new agriculture bills. Their only demand is that the government annul the three new anti-farmer bills.

Although farmers from three states went to Delhi, it does not mean those in other Indian states are not protesting against the bill. In fact, protests have spread all over India. It is not possible for everyone to go to Delhi. 

As days progress, support towards farmers is also increasing due to the inflexible behaviour of the government. Various opposition parties are also supporting farmers' demands.

Punjab and Haryana started the green revolution, but farmers there are no longer in a good situation. The Punjab experience has lessons for those who speak in favour of a green revolution in Bangladesh. Farmers' income in this state is less than that of unskilled city workers, and surviving in agriculture will no longer be possible with the technology of the green revolution. As a result, these farmers are protesting against the new bills of the government, saying those will cause them more harm.  

As they live close to Delhi, they are leading the "Delhi Chalo" (Let us go to Delhi) campaign. However, when they reached near Delhi and staged protests, many people stood by them. Various mosques and gurudwaras gave them food. The farmers themselves also cooked food and ate on the road.

On 27 September, three agricultural bills were passed in Rajya Sabha and they are:

1. Farmer's Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill 2020. This enables farmers to do business directly with various agribusiness firms, wholesalers, exporters, or large retailers.

2. Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act 2020. Through this, contract farming will be legalised by fixing the price in advance.

3. Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill 2020. Under this, food grains, pulses, oilseeds, onions, and potatoes will be removed from the list of essential commodities and the upper limit for stockpiling certain agricultural products will be lifted.

The gist of the three bills is that the state legally established the neoliberal free market system in agriculture. It is as if the central agriculture and agricultural welfare minister, Narendra Singh Tomar, was telling farmers to go and sell crops "freely" in any way they could as the government would no longer take responsibility for them. 

The minimum support price (MSP) of crops, which had been in effect in India for long, would provide a kind of protection for farmers, and they would be guaranteed a minimum price by selling their crops.

The structural injustice imposed on agriculture and farmers in the interest of industries and urbanisation would have somewhat been addressed. But the three new bills are such that in the name of "freeing" farmers, they have in fact been consigned to servitude to large corporations. 

Farmers understand the meaning of these laws, and that is why they are showing strong opposition. They claim that the laws were formulated to hand over the country's agricultural sector and crop marketing system to a few corporations.

Under the three bills, farmers will be able to sell their produce at competitive prices directly with other businesses or corporations instead of the mandi – the existing wholesale market of agricultural goods – system. But farmers say the mandi system understands their interest even though selling crops this way has many problems. They demand that mandi management be fixed as their business will never be at par with that of big companies.

Statements of those who are supporting farmers' protests reveal that none of the three bills addressed the steps that were supposed to be taken to solve farmers' problems in the past. Rather, they created new problems for them. 

Agriculture activist Kavitha Kuruganti says it is true that not everyone gets MSP for crops. It was necessary to take steps so that everyone got it. Increasing the bargaining power of small farmers and making arrangements for stockpiling agricultural products so that farmers can sell at their convenience – all this was needed. 

The key factor is that farmers needed to be freed from debt. But the government did the opposite. It gave companies complete freedom so that they would not face any hurdle in purchasing, processing, and storing agricultural products. In other words, it is avoiding its responsibilities, while subjecting farmers to operate in an unequal market system.

Food and agriculture expert Devinder Sharma gave some examples of how important MSP is for farmers. When buyers in Madhya Pradesh buy okra at Rs40 per kg, farmers get only Rs1 per kg. Enraged, farmers used tractors on lands full of produce to destroy everything or fed those to cows. 

Not only in Madhya Pradesh, farmers all over India also have to face this problem. Therefore, it is very fair for them to want that MSP is maintained. At least, there should be a specific price and crop prices should not go below that. 

Devinder says farmers who produce food for people across the country themselves live in poverty. Their annual income is only Rs27,000. 

It is true that only 6 percent of farmers got MSP benefits. The remaining 94 percent were dependent on the market and were deprived of fair prices. MSP guarantees them a minimum price and that opportunity needs to be expanded. 

Moreover, MSP needs to be brought under a legal context. There is no point in pushing farmers again to compete in the market that has only caused them to incur losses.

In the face of farmers' protests against the three bills, the agriculture minister was compelled to say that MSP would stay. But farmers say considering the way companies and traders have been prioritised in the bills, they are not willing to accept anything other than those being repealed. 

The central government wants to talk to them to amend parts of the laws they have objected to. But farmers say there is nothing to amend in the bad laws and those must be revoked.

Farmers in Bangladesh are in a similar position when it comes to getting crop prices, but they are still not given the minimum price benefit. So, they depend on the market. When the yield is good, farmers become concerned.

If there is a good yield of winter vegetables, including tomatoes, potatoes and eggplants, prices go down so much that farmers cannot even bear the costs of picking crops from fields. They just leave crops there or pick and throw those into the streets out of rage.   

Such stories are frequently printed in newspapers, but there is no one to take steps to solve the problem. There are also examples of contract farming in our country. For instance, tobacco cultivation. 

Tobacco companies set the price in advance with farmers and make them start cultivation by providing loans, seeds, fertilisers, and pesticides. However, in the end, they argue that the grade of tobacco leaves is not correct and then force farmers to sell at a price lower than that agreed in the contract. 

Farmers somehow manage to recoup production costs but even if there is no profit, they are trapped by the contract and thus keep producing tobacco every year. This system is going on illegally, but is anyone noticing?

Throwing agriculture and farmers indiscriminately into a free market system without the government and the state facilitating strong policies and playing a moral and developmental role is a seriously wrong policy. Farmers' protests in Delhi remind us of that. This is what Bangladesh can learn from Delhi farmers.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard.