Jalandhar, Punjab
Rashtriya Kisan Mahasangh launched the Annadata Jagran Abhiyan on August 10, 2020, against three central government agriculture ordinances – the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion & Facilitation) Ordinance, 2020, the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Ordinance, 2020, and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Ordinance Act, 2020.
Under the campaign, Bhartiya Kisan Union Ekta Siddhupur, Jalandhar in Punjab carried out a ‘Jail Bharo’ agitation during which hundreds of farmers let themselves be arrested.
The government introduced the agriculture ordinances in June this year with a view “… to impart efficiency and effectiveness to agricultural marketing, with the aim of raising the income of the farmers.” The recent ordinances provide a legal framework for contract farming, and barrier-free inter-state and intra-state trade and commerce outside the physical premises of markets.
It also permits the removal of all agricultural commodities from the list of essential commodities. In doing so, the government was motivated by the belief that the freedom to produce, hold, move, distribute, and supply will attract private sector/foreign direct investment into the agriculture sector.
Alleging the three agriculture ordinances to be anti-farmer and skewed in favour of the corporates, the farmers demanded its revocation.
“Under the new agriculture ordinance, the government has not guaranteed to procure farmers’ crops at MSP (Minimum Support Price) and is going to hand over the procurement of crops to traders,” said Jagjit Singh Dallewal, a farmer leader. “In 2006, the government procurement of crops was discontinued by scrapping the APMC Act in Bihar and at that time, it was said it would bring investment in the agriculture sector, but today, we see the devastating result of the move,” added Dallewal.
“Under the new ordinance, in case of a dispute between the farmer and a company, the farmers cannot move the court. How can this be fair to the farmer? Through contract farming, the farmer will become a labourer in his own field,” Dallewal contested.
Under the Annadata Jagran Abhiyan, all the organisations associated with the Rashtriya Kisan Mahasangh have embarked on a country-wide campaign to sensitise the farmers about the issue. The situation in every state is different due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Therefore, it was decided that the state unit will determine the nature of its operations as per the circumstances of its respective state. The organisation also decided that a large public gathering of farmers will be held against the three agriculture ordinances in New Delhi after the COVID 19 situation improves.
