March 17, 2021

Day 112

Toll 302

#FarmersProtest

A Million Cuts

For the first time the toll has crossed 300. Yet, there is not a word from the government. In fact, a few weeks back a Haryana leader was crudely dismissive about the deaths. Now, the Haryana government has come out with a new law to suppress protests – Haryana Recovery of Damages to Property during Disturbance to Public Order Bill, 2021. Given this law, the government will find it easier to arrest protesters, impose punishment or dues and supress the voice of the people. Two important protest sites – Singhu and Tikri – are in Haryana.

On the other hand, the Food Corporation of India is coming up with new norms for quality standards and procurement of farm produce. As we know, and is now being repeatedly highlighted through the protests, farming is not the simple throw seeds on ground, wait for rain, harvest, dump in Mandi. Farming is infinitely more complex than us buying what we need off the shelf.

Here is what is already going on since protests began: extreme shortage of gunny sacks to rice shellers. Shellers are the folks who shell the rice from paddy to pack and send it to the FCI to store and distribute. Given the acute shortage of bags, the shellers are clogged with previous season paddy but unable to move it ahead. The pipeline is blocked.

The changed rules limits the acceptance of various categories of paddy/rice:

- Broken grain: 25% is accepted. Now reduced to 20% when on ground broken grain is about 35%.

- Discolouration: 5% was allowed, now reduced to 3%.

- Moisture: 17% was allowed, now reduced to 16%.

- Foreign matter: 2% was allowed, now reduced to 1%.

The changed rules limits the acceptance of various categories of wheat:

- Broken grain: 4% was allowed, now reduced to 2%

- Moisture: 14% was allowed, now reduced 12%; grain won’t be bought even with value cut which was the case earlier.

- Foreign matter: 0.75% was allowed, now reduced to 0.50%

While this will hurt the farmers and the arthiyas, I want to highlight how this is a provision built into the new Farm Laws. In ‘The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020′, see point 4, sub-point 4: ‘The parties entering into a farming agreement may require as a condition that such mutually acceptable quality, grade and standards shall be monitored and certified during the process of cultivation or rearing, or at the time of delivery, by third party qualified assayers to ensure impartiality and fairness’.

Now, no one wants to deliver poor quality of grain. Yet, it is the timing of such new rules – while Kharif season is underway – and their ad hoc nature on what is acceptable or not. It is clear that if the Farm Laws are implemented, there would be many such conditions to curtail acceptance of produce and their sale and these conditions will keep varying according to the needs of corporates.

At another level, recently, the Centre has issued instructions making it mandatory for all farmers to give details of land ownership to get MSP for wheat. We are aware that 82 per cent farmers are small and marginal. In order to be able to farm productively, they take land from other farmers on lease for the season or year. This creates ‘absentee landlordism’. In Panjab, almost 45 per cent of land holdings are leased out by farmers to other cultivators.

Absentee landlordism is definitely an issue but this is not how the government can solve it. What this will do is when I as a farmer have taken five acres to cultivate and deliver my produce in the market, the payment will go to the original owner. That would cause conflict between the original cultivator and me. These are the government’s tactics to dismantle the procurement regime and punish the farmers.

Now tell me, what can the farmers do but protest against these million cuts?