APMC

In the name of empowering farmers, the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020 has displayed a blinkered vision of an integrated supply chain—by undermining the importance of Agricultural Produce Market Committee markets in a competitive and inclusive agri-food market system. By overlooking many important aspects, the law has taken a quantum leap in the wrong direction.

The Government of Bihar repealed the Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) Act in 2006 intending to encourage private parties in agricultural marketing, which was supposed to provide more options to farmers to sell their produce. The experience from the state suggests that repealing the APMC Act did not persuade private entities to set up agricultural markets. This saw the number of mandis remaining stagnant, and with poor agricultural market density combined with negligible public procurement, it led to a lower price realisation by farmers in the state.

Agricultural market reforms recently enacted by the National Democratic Alliance government reflect the Bharatiya Janata Party’s determination to introduce agrobusinesses into agriculture and push further its agenda of centralisation of economic power and decision-making. The opposition to the reforms by farmers, many state governments, and regional political formations poses the most formidable challenge, so far, to this government. The contesting claims have missed the dimension of the damaging ecological  implications of these reforms.

Responding to the critique of their article on the commission agent system in Punjab, the authors highlight the perils of private solutions to agrarian problems. They propose an enhanced role of the public sector in obliterating the exploitative stronghold of arthiya system in order to protect the interests of farmers and address the problems of Punjab's agrarian economy.