What is in the Agriculture bill ?

 So the Agriculture bill has passed so we are going to discuss 3 recently passed farm bills we will discuss about all major points like,

1) Did center has the power to make a law on this area, what disputes are going around center and state govt?

2) Why some states are protesting heavy against this farm bill ? 

Let's see..

       After the Independence in 1947, farmers directly used to sell their agricultural produce to the consumers but, due to zamindari system and many other situations maximum farmers of India were under debt and the money lenders used to charge high Interest rates for the debts taken by the farmer. When farmer fails to pay their Interests then those money lenders use to buy the products from the farmer at a very cheap price and for the next production farmers has to take loan again from the money lender and this process became like a cycle from which farmers were not able to come out and they were exploited continuously.

           For solving the problem of farmer exploitation, Government interfered in it and they introduced APMC ACT ie Agriculture bill has been passed. This act says that farmers can't sell their products directly to the consumer nor any one can directly purchase from them. All the sale will be done through the MANDI which was established through the APMC ACT and the MANDI'S will be ran by the state governments.

         So now lets see how the present model of the APMC ACT functions. Each state's government has its own APMC. States divide the Mandi's according to their area and each area has its specific Mandi. If any trader wants to purchase any thing from Mandi then he has to accquire the license of that specific Mandi. Similarly the farmers of that area are allowed to sell their production on that specific Mandi. This system of selling and purchasing things from the specific Mandi is Mandatory for the traders and farmers. So if any trader want to purchase product from APMC then he has to accquire license from the APMC.

      So now lets see how the products gets sell through APMC. For selling the products auctioning begins we divide auction system in to 2  parts 1st is MSP system, means Minimum Selling Price and the minimum selling price is decided by the Govt of India. MSP is not for all the crops, there are 22 such crops for which Govt of India decides minimum selling price MSP means auction price can't go down from that minimum price, Msp will be the starting level from where the auction will start the product can't be sold at lesser price  from that decided minimum price and in 2nd system the crops apart from that 22 crops are sold by the Price Discovery system, means on the basis of demand and supply of that produce in the market  the price is discovered of that crops the products gets sold through the auction system.

         We can see that products gets sold in APMC through a supply chain means when farmer produces something it reaches to the consumer at last before that there are lots of middle men in the process and this new system is trying to eliminate this middle men. 

          Now let's understand this supply chain farmer will take his product to APMC MANDI and there he will meet with commission agent also known as arthiyas. These commission agents will take forward the farmers produce to the traders for selling the product and there they will negotiate and will discover the price and this process is not transparent after that, the transaction agent comes to the farmer and inform him at what price his product is sold. Now the transaction agent charges 3% market fees on the price which farmer is going to get, farmer only pays it now finally the product is upto trader from the trader it goes to the wholesaler from wholesalers to the retailers and there on to many vendors after all this it finally comes to the consumers the time when the consumers receives the product. 

           There is 50% difference of the actual cost of the product and at least 25% of the total produce gets wasted. So if I am getting this product at the price of 50 rupees or 70 rupees farmer is getting only 7 rupees in return and all the remaining money is divided in the middle men and also as market fees 

        So this is the existing APMC system we can clearly see 2 flaws in our front. First is who can be a trader? APMC market is totally under the control of state government so many of the peoples say, that these traders are only those peoples who have any political connections so only those people becomes trader who are close to state government not others. Second flaw we can see that is between farmer and the consumer there are many middle men and because of the these consumers gets the final produce at very inflated price and farmer has to sell his product at a very low price.

           In 1963 when APMC act was introduced its objective was to protect farmers from the exploitation and to protect them from money lenders and middle men's exploitation but in changing times this act becomes the reason for the exploitation of farmers. APMC act says about MSP (Minimum support price) but in many situation traders form a group and say that they will not buy product at MSP in the particular MANDI. Now think in behalf of the farmers, their produce is of perishable nature till a limited period of time if they don't sell their produce then the value of that product will go down day by day the product will not that fresh. So traders takes advantage of this situation, and they form a group and don't purchase the product at MSP.

            Farmers sells their product at lowest price. For increasing MSP farmers from every state has protested a lot for it. You should also know that there is nothing like regional MSP in our country understand like this, if you are producing rice in Chhattisgarh then its cost is different and if you are producing rice in Tamil Nadu then its cost will also be different but MSP for rice is same in the whole country means Chhattisgarh's farmers can get different profit for that and Tamil Nadu's farmers will get diff profit.That's why to bring reforms in existing structure of MSP many farmers of different states has protested for it.

         So what I am saying is the APMC act has became the reason for monopoly and exploitation. It has became counter productive if we don't even think to bring new farm bill though also there is a need to rectify APMC act.  Since long time in 1991 when the policy of LPG (Liberalization, Privatization and Globalization) was introduced. Then govt reduced its control from the maximum Indian industry for creating free market and economy. 

             Just like that government should also reduce their control in agriculture and farming industry there must be a regulatory and controlled mechanism to make sure that farmers are not been exploited. But at the same time these mechanism should also be like that it suits the need of 21st century for eg. if export gets cancelled then who should bear its cost, farmers should never be exploited for this. What should be the clause if any trader buys the produce at lower than MSP,  then how much he should be penalized and what remuneration farmer should receive. So the government needs to pull back its control from the agriculture and farming sector because the existing system is creating monopoly and whether its government, market or business monopoly is not at all good for any of these.

      Because when monopoly is there, there is no way for fair play or fair competition and only few peoples take advantage of it existing system.

     Next we will discuss about the question, that does center has the power to make a law around the farming sector or not. For answering this question we will refer to 7th Schedule there are 3 lists given in 7th Schedule.  List 1 is of Centre, in which centre can make laws.                                                                   In list 2 there are state subjects in which states can make laws and list 3 is Concurrent list in which both centre and state can make laws. 

So agriculture comes in list 2 - Entry 14 which means it is a part of state list. So strictly speaking, agriculture comes under state where state can make laws for it. State has the powers regarding agriculture research and agricultural produce. If we talk about strict division the powe,r to make laws is with state, only not with the centre. But the strict division is of no worth, why  because we will refer to these 2 articles. Art 248 of the Constitution states about Residuary Powers. It says that if any entry which is not present in those  3 lists, so this power will go the centre and it can make law on that matter. And the second article is Art 249 it says that if any entry is the part of States list, but when it comes to the National Interest then centre will have the power to make laws on the subjects of states. So by using Art  249 stating about the National Interest the centre holds the power and it can make laws. 

       One more thing if we talk about Concurrent list -Entry 33, so the entry 33 reduces the power of state to make laws for agriculture. Entry 33 says Centre can also make laws in the matter of agriculture and by using Entry 33. Centre passed the essential commodities act, which was also a law so strictly speaking centre has the power to make laws for agriculture. 

This is all about the New agricultural law, and why farmers are unhappy with it.

Conclusion:- According to many researchers this Agriculture bill may grab agricultural sector under the hands of commercial sector. So what's your opinion about this, please comment!

Note that it is only the review put by experts, there is no intention to cause any problems between the people and government.