Reforms to benefit mostly traders: Experts

Vibha Sharma

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, June 4

The agriculture reforms announced by the government are mostly for traders, hoarders, exporters and big agribusinesses, not for farmers, say experts and activists.

The government’s three reforms include an ordinance to promote “barrier-free inter-state and intra-state trade outside APMC market” and amendment to the Essential Commodities Act to remove commodities like cereals, pulses, oilseeds, edible oil, onion and potato from the list of essential commodities.

Agricultural policy analyst Devinder Sharma says, “Removing stock limits do not benefit farmers. Not touching the agricultural produce market committee (APMC) legislations of respective states is a good step. However, the real reform will be to expand the network of APMC ‘mandis’ in the country and make MSP a legal obligation.”

According to agriculture expert Sudheer Panwar, exporters, traders and processors will benefit from the amendment to ECA. “It has nothing to do with farmers. Many independent studies indicate deregulation of agriculture trade resulted in reduced bargaining powers and cartelisation of traders.”

Kavitha Kuruganti from the Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture said the ECA amendment was related to farmers only to the extent that seed trade and fertilisers got regulated under some orders of the Act. “Otherwise, this was always about consumers. To say that the move will now benefit farmers is laughable,” she said.

Regarding ‘One India, One Market’, she said there was no evidence to show deregulation of markets as was the case with Bihar or Kerala had actually ensured remunerative prices for farmers.