The New Farm Laws in India - A Consideration

The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection and Farm Services) Act, was gazetted in the Gazette of India New Delhi, the 27th September, 2020 and takes effect from 5th June 2020. The Statutory Rules for this Act are however yet to be notified and placed before Parliament. These new laws have evoked considerable controversy and debate. While the Government of India has claimed that the new farm laws would help the farmers, it is seen that the farmers are denying this claim and to the contrary publicly stating that these new laws would harm them. Under the circumstances, it is important that those interested or concerned about this development should find out for themselves as to what is what. The new Farm Laws are available to download from the Internet and individual citizens and the press are free to study these and make their views known. A preliminary study of the new farm laws indicates — (a) some points need clarity in the “definitions” clause. For instance, the definition of “farmer” is defective – it mentions only “individual”, who may not be an Indian at all, but may be a foreigner. It is not clearly provided that farmer should be “an individual citizen of India”, personally engaged in and supervising the farming activities. The term “Farming” is also not defined , e.g. as use of personally-held or family-held agricultural land, for production of cereal crops, pulses, oil seeds, cotton, jute, sugar cane and specifically excludes, large organized plantation industries like tea, coffee, spices, coconut, areca-nut, cashew nut, etc. ”Farmers Produce Organization” is not clearly defined. The role and function of the so-called “Sponsor” organization is also not defined and apparently merely either replaces the current middlemen or are middlemen by a different name. Certain terms used in the Act have not been defined, e.g. “farm gate” (b) there is reliance on legally enforceable agreements or contracts and this may pose serious problems for the small and marginal farmers (if not most farmers across the board) in understanding and implementing such agreements as most of them are not so literate as to understand legal provisions; (c) Clause 13 of the new Act realted to Dispute Settlement.This provides that representation of parties shall be “fair and balanced”. This is vague and may again lead to unnecessary litigation. This should be re-worded to provide for three members of a Conciliation Board and two members each representing farmers/FP and the buyers and that the majority view of the Board shall ordinarily prevail. (d) Clauses 16 to 20 provide that any decision that any government agency may take in respect of any dispute arising from such agreements cannot be challenged in a court of law.This is a deviation from most laws that do provide for an appeal procedure in a court of law or a tribunal. On the practical side, the small and marginal farmers who form the bulk of the farming community in terms of numbers, usually have just 4–5 acres of land and are therefore engaged more or less in family-based subsistence farming with little or no surplus grain to be sold in the market. Their “staying power” is limited and they often get into debt in case of crop failure. On the other hand, it is the larger farmers who have surplus rain for the market, but they also have higher costs because of labour employed, diesel or electricity costs for pumping water, use of fertilizers and pesticides, etc. They also need a reasonable return on their fixed and variable costs to be able to sustain production year after year. Hence the importance of MSP, which has been in operation for over 40 years and has sustained growth in cereals output - the foundation of “food security” in india - over these years. There is a need also to boost oil -seeds and lentils production in the country, which may also require some sort of MSP. Thus there is a need to study the new farm laws at first hand and to engage in informed debate and discussion.