Prime Minister Narendra Modi slammed the opposition for “political deceit” over India’s trio of agricultural laws in an interview with Open, a news weekly published last weekend. Launched in 2020, these agricultural reforms were aimed at paving the way for a broader Private purchase of agricultural produce and contract farming but went in protest against farmers and are still suspended. Although unspecified, Modi’s reference was preceded by Congress’s support for the region’s market orientation.
Our centralized state-of-the-buyer model has distorted farming beyond financially and ecologically sustainable levels, and in a mostly barrier-free market, real price signals need to play a major corrective role. The more consistent of today’s objections, however, stem from weak shock-absorbers for such transitions. The rapid withering of the state’s crop-raising machinery could leave small cultivators facing the monoponic asymmetry of a market with millions of sellers and only a few buyers: the latter possibly using cartelesque power to limit the earnings of the fragmented weaker side. can use. The potential for unfair consequences can still be minimized with legislative safeguards. Verbal reassurance is unlikely to be sufficient.
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