Why are the farmers distrustful of governments?

It is an irony that days after late M S Swaminathan’s name, the pioneer of India’s Green Revolution, was announced for the country’s highest civilian honour of Bharat Ratna, thousands of farmers are trying to lay siege to the nation’s capital. One of the vociferous demands is implementation of the Swaminathan Commission recommendations, mainly the minimum support price (MSP). Known as the C2+50 per cent formula, the Commission formula on MSP includes the input cost of capital and the rent on the land, to give the farmers 50 per cent extra on their crop costs.

First, why are the farmers now taking up cudgels against the Narendra Modi government again? They had launched huge protests and tried to storm Delhi on June 5, 2020, in protest against three Bills – The Farmers Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020; The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020; and The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020 – when the President promulgated three ordinances on them. For over one year, they waged relentless and painful protests. Finally, on November 21, 2021, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced their repeal. The farmers called off their protest as the government assured to consider their pressing demand for MSP.

The GOI did form an MSP Committee in July 2022 to take up the issue, but there is no word on this. Naturally, a deep lack of trust in the Modi government built up among the farmers and, hence, their protest to mount pressure in the run-up to the General Elections. Has the government forgotten the unprecedented protests against the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act which provided for allowing the farmers to sell their produce outside the Agriculture Produce Market Committees (APMCs). The farmers feared that allowing outside-APMC trade of farm produces would lead to lesser buying by the government agencies in the approved mandis, and, hence, the MSP has since remained the main contentious point.

The MSP system, since its introduction 1966 to overcome a severe cereal shortage in the country, has grown into a politically sensitive and financially unviable programme. Even 75 years after Independence, the Indian farmers, most of them being marginal, still operate in a buyers’ market across the country. After toiling hard, shine or rain, starved of easy credit, quality seeds and any input assistance, and finally weathering vagaries of nature, they bring their produce to the market where they are fleeced and denied remunerative prices. The result: Scores of farmers die by suicide every year across the country. Add to this rural distress and absence of other avenues to quit the farming. If most of the protesters are from Punjab and Haryana, it is because at least there the farmers receive MSP support for paddy, wheat that helps them earn a more certain income. Do not begrudge them.

The Central government, at the outset, should at least assure to address the farmers’ main concerns in a time-bound manner, failing which the protests would catch the attention of the farmers nationwide and fan disgruntlement – over why crop procurements at MSP are not benefiting the farmers in all the States. If there are hurdles to providing a guaranteed MSP, the government should reach out to the farmers. Make them and the nation aware of budgetary constraints. After promising to double their incomes, the NDA government needs to explain facts. And only PM Modi can do this the best way.

Before pointing fingers at the NDA, the Congress must explain why it did not include MSP gurantee in UPA’s National Policy for Farmers in 2007.