Experts question timing of agricultural reforms

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 16

The Central Government’s intention to change laws relating to essential commodities and selling of agriculture produce has been questioned for its timing by economic experts.

Though several economists, led by Ashok Gulati, have appreciated Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government for biting the bullet and have hailed the decision to dilute the Agriculture Produce Marketing Committees Act (APMC), others are not so sure.

Besides questioning the need for making futuristic policy announcements when the need of the hour is cash transfer to farmers and a bonus on their rabi crop, experts are apprehensive about the contours of an alternate structure that will be thrust without consultations with farmer and traders.

Bihar abolished the APMC Act over a decade ago.

Logically, farmers should be discovering new price highs in the absence of a system cited by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman as exploitative and monopolistic.

“But why is it that in this season wheat production in Haryana is subdued. Or more rice comes to Haryana mills than is produced in the state?” asks noted agriculture expert Devinder Sharma, before answering the question that it was because MSP prices in Haryana and Punjab was higher.

Devinder Sharma felt that the pandemic should not have been the time to push for such far-reaching reforms that require extensive consultations.

Academic and agriculture economist Sudheer Panwar refers to two schools of thought for resuscitating the farm sector.

The first is to take out the farm labour and redeploy it in the industrial and services sector. But the Central Government has opted for the second option of improving storage, processing and production.

Panwar points out that the move to dilute the APMC Act and abolish the Essential Commodities Act points to increasing footprints of the corporate sector.

While Sharma points out that a similar move has put the US agriculture into crises, Panwar says a similar experiment in the Philippines also showed that the producer would always remain under pressure.

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