Reforming Indian agriculture and the rise of farmer's protest in India: Tracing the discourse and the way ahead

• Published in: Journal of public affairs 2023-02, Vol.23 (1), p.n/a
• Main Authors: Shakeel, Adnan, Salman, Mohd. Sadiq, Shazli, Tasneem, Naqvi, Hasan Raja, Siddiqui, Masood Ahsan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Academic staff; agricultural capitalism; Agriculture; Cartels; Central government; Companies; Contract farming; Contracts; Demonstrations & protests; Economic justification; Exploitation; farmer's protest; Farmers; Farming; Farms; Infrastructure; Investors; Justification; Legislation; Middlemen; minimum support price (MSP); neoliberalism; new farm laws; Policy making; Private sector; Regulation; Rural communities; Supply; Unfair contracts
• ISSN: 1472-3891; 1479-1854
• DOI: 10.1002/pa.2847

The Indian government unveiled new farm legislation on September 27, 2020, with the goal of empowering the farming community. According to the government, new farm regulations will reduce the reliance of indigenous farmers on the mandi (market yard) system, which is now in place and is quite exploitative and full of middlemen and legal cartels. The regulations made contract farming lawful with the intention of luring private sector investment in bolstering agricultural supply chains and infrastructure to give farmers better pricing. But these rules are referred to as repressive and anti‐farmer by the farming community. Farmers believe that eliminating the mandi system will eliminate the minimum support price (MSP) mechanism and that contract farming will ultimately be damaging, enticing major corporations and private investors to bind them to unfair contracts that will result in exploitation. Farmers' demonstrations have begun as a result in the former territory of the green revolution. In order to determine if the new farm regulations introduced by the central government are indeed beneficial to the rural community or not, the article followed the debate among many academics, policy makers, economists, researchers, stakeholders, and politicians (the government's spokesman). The article's main focus is on analysing the farmers' demand for the new farm rules to be repealed and the economic justification for their opposition. Additionally, it contends that new farm rules will encourage capitalistic farming and endanger the viability of farming communities, particularly small and marginal farms (S&M).