New protest against agricultural reform in India
Audio 03:14
Indian farmers demonstrate and block a railway line, to protest against agricultural reforms, Monday, September 27, 2021, in Sonipat, in the state of Haryana, in northern India.
© REUTERS - ANUSHREE FADNAVIS
By: Pauline Gleize Follow
6 mins
Indian farmers called for a national strike on September 27, 2021 as part of what is already the sector's longest protest movement in the subcontinent.
Their demand: that the government repeals the agricultural reforms voted in September 2020 and validated by the president a year ago to the day.
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Anger crystallizes around three texts that will liberalize the agricultural market.
These laws allow all farmers to sell their crops directly to private buyers at negotiated prices and prices without going through the “mandi”, a state-controlled market where a minimum price is guaranteed to producers.
Certain foodstuffs such as wheat, rice or even onions are not included in the list of essential goods, the list which governed their purchase.
The government promises that the minimum price system will be maintained.
The executive is also promoting its reform by ensuring that it will potentially allow farmers to sell their harvest at better prices.
Economists in favor of these laws and quoted by the BBC also believe that it will attract investment and increase productivity.
Balance of power
But many farmers fear that regulated prices will eventually disappear.
They would then have no fallback solution if the negotiations do not go in their favor.
And without this floor price, they would also have fewer arguments, fewer cards in their hand, to prevent buyers from pushing prices down.
An important card as the balance of power is unfavorable to many peasants, the majority of them having less than one hectare of land.
However, the demonstrators accuse two tycoons of having pushed the reform.
Effigies of the multibillionaire Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani, active among other things in the food industry, were even burned this winter.
Farmers are all the more suspicious as the laws were passed in a turbulent context.
During the Covid-19 crisis and on a disputed modality in the ranks of the opposition.
Dead end
In an attempt to ease tensions, in January the Supreme Court intervened and suspended the law.
The body appointed a committee of experts.
But agricultural unions consider that they are too favorable to the government.
And the negotiations are deadlocked.
Moreover, mistrust somehow comes from experience!
A similar reform was carried out in the 2000s in the
state of Bihar
.
Farmers have to deal with price volatility but sometimes have no choice but to sell despite low prices due to lack of storage space for their harvest or because they need fresh money.
However, the system of "mandis", these regulated markets, are not the panacea.
They do not concern all of the hundreds of millions of Indian farmers.
The 6000 or so public contracts are also "
unequally distributed over the territory
", explains
Reporterre
.
They are therefore sometimes too far away for some farmers, among other problems.
Indian agriculture, which accounts for 15% of the GDP and directly or indirectly supports 70% of the population, needs reform.
But, some consider that the "mandi" system could be improved rather than discarded, for example by broadening public support to other cultures.
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Agriculture and Fishing