Farmers’ talks inconclusive again
In 4th meeting with Union ministers, farm leaders ask for special session to roll back contentious laws; Centre gives assurances on MSP
NEW DELHI: Talks between three Union ministers and a representative group of thousands of agitating farmers failed to yield any resolution on Thursday, as the Union leaders stuck to their demand for the repeal of new farm laws and even refused the lunch, tea and water offered to them during almost eight-hour-long hectic parleys.
On its part, the government assured the group of nearly 40 farmer leaders that all their valid concerns would be addressed, but the other side flagged several loopholes and deficiencies in the laws, which they said were passed hastily in September.
The agriculture ministry tweeted that doubts of farmers were addressed by agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar, who led the government side at the talks.Tomar later told reporters that the next meeting will take place on Saturday at 2 pm.
A government official said the meeting would resume on Saturday as no final outcome could be reached due to paucity of time.
Union leaders, who came out of the meeting venue shouting slogans, said the talks remained deadlocked and some of them threatened to boycott any further meetings if no solution was found at Thursday’s meeting.
“Discussions are over from our side. Our leaders have said they will not attend further meetings if a solution is not
given today by the government,” said Pratibha Shinde, AIKSCC (All India Kishan Sangharsh Coordination Committee) working group member and president of Lok Sangharsh Morcha, which represents farmers of Maharashtra and Gujarat.
Another farmer leader Kulwant Singh Sandhu said the government made many proposals including on minimum support price (MSP) and procurement system, which would be discussed among the farmer organisations on Friday, before the next meeting with the government on Saturday.
Officials said the government gave a detailed presentation on the three new laws and asserted its intent towards the welfare of the farmers. However, the union leaders rejected the government’s position at their fourth round of talks with three Union ministers at Vigyan Bhawan.
Besides Tomar, the government side included railways and commerce minister Piyush Goyal and minister of state for commerce Som Parkash, who is also an MP from Punjab.
Farmers also wanted a rollback of an ordinance invoked in October by the government to crack down on pollution in New Delhi, of which crop-residue burning is a major cause. The ordinance has riled farmers because it provides for steep penalties for polluters, including farmers who burn crop stubble, with a jail term of 1 year and fines of up to ₹1 crore.
The recent reforms in the antiquated farm sector allow businesses to freely trade farm produce outside the so-called government-controlled mandi system, permit private traders to stockpile large quantities of essential commodities for future sales and lay down new rules for contract farming.
In the last round of talks on December 1, which was inconclusive, the government had asked the farm unions to identify specific provisions in the three farm laws which they were opposed to. The three ministers had assured of appropriate responses to their objections in today’s meeting.
“The issue is not about one particular clause, but about the direction in which the Centre is pushing farming in India,” stated Avik Saha, the secretary of the All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee, in a letter to the farm minister ahead of Thursday talks.
Farmers fear the reforms could pave the way for the government to stop buying staples at federally fixed MSP, erode their bargaining power and leave them at the mercy of private buyers.
The government has insisted it will still buy staples at MSP, but farmers have demanded a law to guarantee that no sale of farm produce below MSP will be permitted.
Indian farmers receive lower-than-international prices for their produce because of increasing costs of cultivation, inadequate markets and the government’s obsession with keeping food prices low. This has worsened agriculture’s terms of trade, measured as a ratio of prices of agri-products to prices of manufactured items. The crisis, therefore, is not one of low production, but of low prices.
Economists say an MSP mechanism that ignores dynamics, such as demand and global prices, creates market distortions. If it is not profitable for traders to buy at federally-fixed MSP, when demand is low, then the private sector will simply exit the markets. In such a scenario, the government simply cannot be a monopoly buyer of all produce, said Pravesh Sharma, a fellow at New Delhi’s Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations.
The assumption behind the new reforms is that free competition in agricultural markets will result in a market-clearing price, at which quantity supplied equals quantity demanded, resulting in an equilibrium.