The new farm reforms will improve the farmers’ condition and the number of suicides will come down, Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar told Prabhu Chawla, Editorial Director, The New Indian Express in TNIE Expressions, a series of live webcasts with people who matter.
What was the need of three farm Bills during the Covid period? Was it right to bring the Bills at such a time?
Everybody wanted growth in agriculture. But, it is unfortunate that every good work has to face some protests...Discussion on reforms and in agriculture has been going on since long. The PM has been working in this direction continuously... Whether it is accepting the recommendations of the Swaminathan Committee on MSP, or transferring Rs 75,000 crore in farmers’ bank accounts through PM-KISAN.
Agriculture infrastructure fund of nearly Rs 1.50 lakh crore was announced. It is necessary that farming should become profitable and some legal reforms were needed for this. We brought this Act. Now, farmers will not need to go to mandis. Mandis will be one of the options, and the farmer will be free to sell his produce directly from farms or warehouse.
A large amount has been dedicated for farm sector reforms. But, there are many states like Bihar, Sikkim where there is no APMC Act. Do you think that farmers there will get benefit? What will be the benefits?
In Bihar, if we look back, we find that farmers were not happy with APMCs. It had become like a racket and farmers were exploited. Exploitation of farmers stopped in Bihar after APMCs were removed. Farmers are independent of doing his business in the State.
But, income of farmers is very less. Income has not doubled since 2005.
Farmers have started benefiting because of the central schemes. Their income will certainly rise when they will improve. Milk and fisheries are also related to farming. For milk, farmers are not bound to go to mandis. There is an open trade for milk. Milk can be sent to Delhi or any other state from Madhya Pradesh. Farmers get adequate price for milk, and milk production has gone up by 8% in last six years. Similarly, Fisheries have improved. ...Milk and fisheries have greater contribution to agriculture GDP than crops.
Agriculture contributes only 18% to the GDP, down from 50%. How will we reverse this trend?
Earlier, agriculture used to be the main industry and that is why it had a huge contribution. But, now more sectors have opened up. These sectors have more turnover and have progressed. Certainly, they will contribute more to the growth. For growth of agriculture, we need to do more. Today, there is a gap between farm produce and processors. Farmers will not be able to get the right price if the gap and the hurdles remain. Easy investment should reach villages. We need to provide adequate infrastructure in villages and that is why we came up with Acts on open trade. Earlier, farmers had to reach mandis. Now, the trend will reverse...processors will come to them to buy their produce.
But, size of holding is very less. It looks like big industrialists will dictate over farmers.
It is true that nearly 86% farms are small. But, small farmers can be a big force. For this, FPO scheme was launched. We are going to spend `68 lakh in five years on every FPO to help farmers. When these small farmers will come together in one FPO, they will emerge as a big force. It will raise their risk-taking capacity. Even small farmers will be able to get adequate price of their produce.
Despite all these efforts, farmers’ income has not gone up much. Suicides have increased. Do you think there is no proper implementation (of schemes)...
We always wanted benefits to reach the bottom. Benefits are reaching through DBT. Rs 75,000 crore of Kisan Samman Nidhi is reaching the accounts of farmers. ..they will get more benefits with the growth in digitisation. But, so far as reform is concerned, I want to say that farmers should be cautious of bad-publicity. People are criticising due to self-interests..they don’t have any right to criticise. Overall, we brought three reforms. You see the 2019 Congress manifesto. They have promised that they will implement these reforms if they come to power. Even (former) Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and (former) agriculture minister Sharad Pawar spoke about such reforms during the UPA. But, they could not dare due to some pressure or influence. Even Punjab Congress manifesto talked about these reforms. Modiji is always ready to take risk for reforms. Because he knows that there will be some risks in the making of New India. The new reforms will certainly improve the conditions of farmers and will curb suicides.
But, the input costs are rising. Diesel is costlier. Electricity and fertilisers have become costlier. How will income rise?
I agree with this. Diesel and other prices keep moving up and down. But, I want to tell that Swaminathan ji had recommended of fixing MSP by adding 50% profits to the cost of farming. In 10 years, the UPA did not implement ther recommendations. Today, Modiji has done this. MSPs are declared after adding 50 % benefits to all the input costs. We have started this. In last six years, nearly H7 lakh crore worth purchase has been done from farmers on MSP, which is nearly the double of UPA’s 10 years.
But, procurement under MSP is not much in many states. In that condition, farmers will be dependent of farmers. There will be monopoly.
Nobody should have any fear on this. FCI and NAFED are procuring wheat, rice and pulses, and it is rising continuously. FCI makes purchase in coordination with the states. There is a timeframe for FCI and it procures from farmers within that period. Our Act says that payment should be made to farmers within three days of purchase. It also says that there would be no taxes on trading outside APMCs.