THE draft “National Policy Framework on Agricultural Marketing (NPFAM)”, recently circulated by the Union Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare reveals the sinister intentions of the RSS-BJP-led union government. It is a conspiracy to sacrifice farmers' interest and maximise corporate profits.

The draft reveals that the centre has not addressed any of the serious demands raised by the fighting farmers’ movement like legalising MSP, increasing public investment in agriculture, pro-farmer credit facilities etc. While the draft pays lip service to the fact that agricultural marketing is a state subject under Article 246 of the Constitution, the spirit of the draft is to attack federalism and the power of the state governments, abolish state-supported market infrastructure, and erode the role of the APMCs, leaving small and medium farmers highly vulnerable to the exploitation by private trading cartels.

The major suggested reforms in the draft include the establishment of private wholesale markets, direct farm gate purchases by corporate processors and exporters, replacement of traditional market yards with corporate-controlled warehouses and silos, and introduction of a unified statewide market fee and trading license system. The draft proposes that big corporations can purchase produce directly from farmers, bypassing APMC market yards. Big business houses, including Reliance and Adani, have constructed extensive warehouse infrastructure and private railway networks in Sirsa, Haryana and Ludhiana, Punjab.

The corporate lobby and international finance capital are virulently against MSP because their strategy has always been to procure agricultural produce at the cheapest rate, do value addition, brand and market it, and make exorbitant profits. This way, big business is exploiting both farmers as well as consumers. In the name of market efficiency, the centre is creating a conducive atmosphere for the corporate loot of agriculture.

The draft does not include a regulatory clause to make the corporate industries and traders liable to share a certain percentage of the surplus that they usurped with the primary producers as remunerative price for the raw products supplied by them. The BJP-led NDA government is thus surrendering to corporate interests, perpetuating peasant suicides and indebtedness, and facilitating pauperisation of the peasantry.

Significantly, in a self-contradicting manner, the draft documents the “deplorable” condition of the Bihar Mandis after the repeal of the APMC Act. It is self-contradictory because at the peak of the legendary Delhi farmers’ struggle, RSS-BJP leaders and corporate interests close to the union government were spreading the narrative that Bihar’s abolition of the APMC Act was a classic example of deregulating the farm markets.

The draft is crystal clear on the need for corporatisation of agriculture; it is seen as the only way to “reform” agriculture. For instance, the draft visualises the much-hyped FPO scheme, a pet project of Modi, as a tool for furthering corporate penetration. This is by creating a conducive atmosphere for cluster-based FPOs to enter contract farming arrangements with big business houses operating in agriculture. The class interest behind the great eagerness shown by corporate groups like CII and FICCI in promoting the FPO scheme is unfolding.

The stranglehold of big business houses is also evident in the suggestions for deepening financialisation via Futures and Option Markets. This will also permit the MNC’s and International finance capital to dominate and control the domestic food industry, jeopardising the food security of the people of India.

Stiff resistanceto the draft has begun. The Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) has mobilised tens of thousands of farmers in nationwide protests burning the draft in demonstrations on December 23 and in tractor/vehicle rallies on January 26. Two massive Kisan Mahapanchayats at Tohana, Haryana, and Moga, Punjab, last month together mobilised over 75,000 farmers. The SKM national meetings held in Delhi recently have vowed to further intensify the struggle.

The efforts by the BJP-RSS government to surrender Indian agriculture on a platter to the corporates, domestic and foreign, must be strongly resisted by all sections of the people.

(January 29, 2025)