Agricultural labourers are difficult to explain. It is not possible for labourers to emerge as a separate class depending on full wages until capitalism develops in agriculture. Agricultural labour enquiry committee 1950-55 defined agricultural labourer as “those people who are engaged in raising crops on payment of wages“. According to the second committee, if 50% or more of wages is received from the agricultural sector, it can be classed to agricultural labour household. The number of agricultural labour has increased to 27.5 million in 1951. In 1981 the total number of agricultural workers has increased to 55.4 million and again in 1991, the total number of agricultural workers has increased to 74.6 million.

From the beginning, the landlords in this country have enslaved and oppressed these labourers for their own benefit and this system has been going generation after generation. After 50 years of independence, the situation has improved but they remain largely unorganized and thus economic exploitation continues.

Conditions and Problems of Agricultural Labour

As we know that 53% of the population in agricultural India is engaged in agriculture. But all these farmers still have to depend on the monsoon for crop production. Agriculture in India falls under the unorganized sector, so their income is not fixed.

• Marginalization of Agricultural Labourers – In 1951 the workforce in agriculture was 97.2 million and in 1991, it increased to 185.2 million. Agricultural labourers increased from 28% in 1951 to 40% in 1991. These facts indicate the first pace of casualization of the workforce in agriculture in India.
• Low wages and income – The daily wage and family income of agricultural labourers in India is very low. Although wage rates have risen since the green revolution, they have fallen far short of rising prices. At present agricultural workers in the rural area are getting around Rs. 150 per day under the MNREGA in rural areas.
• Gender issues in the agricultural sector – Women in agriculture are affected by issues of recognition and in the absence of land rights, female agricultural labourers, farm widows and tenant farmers are left bereft of recognition as farmers and consequent entitlements. They are excluded from their rights. On November 20, 2018, over 40,000 farmers had gathered in Delhi from across India. Chandravati from Ghazipur and 40 others women participated in Kishan Mukti March for their demand of compensation for the paddy crop that got spoilt in 2018, so as to sustain a livelihood. Female agricultural workers are generally forced to work harder and paid less than their male counterparts.
• Employment – Agricultural labourers are unemployed for most of the year and even have no alternative job opportunities.
• Indebtedness – Due to lack of banking system in rural areas, they are forced to take loans from moneylenders at very high rates. As a result, they often become involved in a vicious cycle.

Policy Implementation of Government of India

Indian agricultural policy has long been distinguished by its border and domestic intervention to protect farmers from international price concerns. To achieve this goal the Government of India has implemented a number of policies at various times –

• Land reforms – Government of India undertakes land reform measures for successful abolition of land intermediaries and transfer of land to actual farmers.
• Institutional credit -After the nationalization of banks in 1969, nationalized bank paid extra attention to the needs of the agricultural sector. Regional rural banks are established mainly for agricultural credit requirements. National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) was also set up. The importance of moneylenders for the needs of institutional credit to the farmers declined and as a result, their exploitation on the farmers also decreases.
• Procurement and support prices– Another policy measure of significant importance is the announcement of procurement and support prices to ensure fair returns to the farmers that even in a year of surplus, the prices do not tumble down and farmers do not suffer losses.
• Input subsidies to agriculture– The purpose of input subsidization is to use modern input to increase agricultural production. Under this government policy, various inputs are supplied to the farmers below the fixed open market price.
• Passing Minimum Wage Act
• Abolition of bonded labourers
• Providing land to landless labourers
• Provision of housing cities to houseless

Special schemes for providing employment:

• Crash scheme for rural employment (CSRE)
• Pilot intensive Rural Employment Project (PIREP)
• National Rural Employment Programme
• Rural Landless Employment Programme(RLEP)
• Jawahar Rojgar Yojana
• National Scheme of Training of Rural Youth for Self Employment (TRYSM)
• Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP)

Another important government schemes in the agricultural sector-

• Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana was launched by the NDA government in 2015 to promote organic farming across India. According to the scheme for farmers will be encouraged to groups or clusters and each cluster or group have 50 farmers willing to take up organic farming under PKVY and they will be provided INR 20,000 per acre by the government over three years’ time.
• Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) is the Government sponsored crop insurance scheme that provides insurance coverage and financial support to the farmers in the event of failure of any of the notified crop as a result of natural calamities, pests and diseases.
• Livestock Insurance Scheme aims to provide a protection mechanism to the farmers and cattle against any eventual loss of their animals due to death.

Government’s Scheme: Myth or Reality?

How the policies adopted by the government has a positive impact on farmers or completely fail to protect the interest of farmers, as an example, farmers from Vimchur, a remote rural area in India’s Maharashtra province planted large quantities of grapes in March and exported them to various parts of India. When Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the lockdown from midnight of 24th March, he gave India’s 1.3 billion citizens barely for hour notice. It was a cruel joke that had a huge effect on millions of farmers. By that time, a farmer form Vimchur had dispatched 100 quintals of grapes to Bangladesh, but 350 quintals were still on vines in the fields. The Modi government had arranged special jets to bring back all reach people who are stranded abroad. But the train service was completely stopped and the farmers failed to sell their grapes. Even if they arranged a truck, but the permits were not granted despite pleas to the government.

The Indian parliament has passed two primary farm bills in this pandemic year. The upper house passed the Farmer’s Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill 2020 and the Price Guarantee and Farm Services Bill Agreement for Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) 2020 that are collectively referred as ‘Farm Bills’. This will assist small and marginal farmers as the law will move from the farmer to the sponsor the risk of market unpredictability. On the other hand, in ‘Mandis’ the laws likely to affect powerful commission agents (known as ‘arhatiyas‘ in Punjab and Haryana), who don’t want to lose their hold on the farmers (Sahoo, 2020). Due to the loss of Mandi tax, the strong source of revenue, the state government of Punjab and Haryana will be affected most, however, it is expected that the loss would be recovered under GST collection. The opposition claims the government wants to ‘enslaved farmers’ to capitalism. In response, the government says that monopoly of APMC Mandis will end but they will not be shut down and will continue to function as normal and that the Minimum Support Price (MSP) will not be scrapped. Thus the complex question remains whether farmers will benefit from the surplus at all if the crop is sold through a mediating private agent?

Farmers from Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh demand repeal of the controversial farm bill by their ‘Dilli Chalo’ campaign on Constitution Day, 26 November 2020. Police fired water cannons and tear gas at the protesting farmers. A large number of the farmer were oppressed by the government with the assistance of the police to disperse them. However, later the government invited them to have a discussion with them on the bill.

According to the World Bank, about 40% of Indians depend on agriculture for their livelihood but this sector has been under pressure for many years due to crop failure and price drop. A 2015 study found that about 40% of farmers committed suicide due to economic pressure for crop failure. Although the Modi government has introduced Minimum Support Prices for crops, few farmers are benefiting. The government is also in the thick of a controversy over the Prime Minister’s Cropping Insurance Scheme. In the other words, all the policies that the government is adopting in the name of security without planning are in fact nothing more than a myth. In fact, the government’s formulation of all these policies is the only way for farmers to be dependent on the private sector.

Conclusion

For the progress of the agrarian country, first of all, the necessary steps should be taken to improve the condition of the farmers because the improvement of their condition can be conducive to the benefit of the whole society. The government needs to focus on better implementation of legislative measures, improvement the bargaining position, resettlement of agricultural workers, creating alternative sources of employment, regulation of hours work, credit at cheaper rates of interest on easy terms of payment for undertaking subsidiary occupation, proper training for improving the skill of farm labourers. Therefore, in the interest of electoral politics, the ruling class must refrain from oppression in the name of protecting the labourers by using them as tools. In this way, a developed society will be built.

Reference(s)

Padhi, K. (2007).Agricultural Labour in India – A Close Look. Orissa Review

Sahoo, S. (2020). Impact of India’s New Farm Act 2020 on Farmers and Markets. Biotica Research Today, 2(10), 986.

Chand, S.”8 important policy measures introduced in the agricultural sector in India”, Your Article Library, (Dec 1, 2020)

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The Trifecta of Ordinances

The Modi government passed some agricultural ordinances in June which were aimed at reforming the current system. However soon enough, these ran into controversy and faced wide-spread opposition from farmer unions and groups.

These new laws include: first and foremost, the government has done away with important provisions of the Essential Commodities Act, which amended the restrictions imposed on stocking of food, allowing the Centre to regulate certain agri-products during emergencies or otherwise. Second, a new law called the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Ordinance, 2020 or the FPTC Ordinance opens up direct agricultural trade to outside players and businesses other than APMC stakeholders. Lastly, contract farming has been legalised.

There are many pros and cons of these novel ordinances, but one must first wonder as to why these laws were passed through ordinances bypassing Parliament rather than through the proper procedure. What was so urgent or controversial about these laws that they could not be subjected to proper debate and were passed hastily in the midst of a pandemic, when there are more pressing issues to deal with? Another important aspect is the fact that agriculture is a subject on the concurrent list i.e. both state and central governments have to legislate through cooperation. But the authority of the states and their right to regulate Agricultural Produce Market Committees (APMCs) of their respective states has been contravened. This not only undermines their authority but also reduces their right over revenue from this source significantly. So on the face of it, the second ordinance appears to be unconstitutional…It remains to see if it will be challenged in the top court by any of the stake-holders.

Evaluation of these ordinances requires a two-pronged vision: acknowledgement of their effect on the corporate sector, and on farmers. The first ordinance is the amendment of the Essential Commodities Act which allows the government to impose stock restrictions on certain agricultural products under special circumstances like famine, flood or any other emergency. The base for such restrictions is the rise of inflation to 100% for perishable items and 50% for the rest. Given the inflation trend in India, these conditions are all too often, as was proved by the staggering rise in onion prices last year. The ordinance also removes stock limit restrictions for value chain stakeholders provided that the stocks are within their storage capacity, and also for exporters who can prove that a large demand exists. This might encourage businesses to invest more in agriculture, but it also opens the door for large-scale hoarding which is already rampant in the nation. Plus there is no way for states to validate that stocks are being stored according to permissible levels, especially if private players are now allowed more freedom in the market.

The second law seeks to “do away” APMCs and open up the selling of agricultural produce to private businesses outside the established state mandis, and that too without any tax barriers. The aim is to liberalise the market in order to ramp up the competition and allow corporates to deal directly with farmers, promoting better prices for the latter. The pre-existing APMC system is riddled with inefficiency. Only 7% farmers manage access to MSP, and the rest go through rampant exploitation and are severely underpaid. There is a lot of monopoly at play, giving rise to a middlemen mandi-mafia which illegally regulates pricing. On top of this is the bureaucratic apathy, measly infrastructure and for name-only elections. Often farmers are forced to sell their produce below the Minimum Support price outside these mandis or dump their goods on the streets. Hence, there is a universal agreement that the system is in need of dire reform. This new ordinance will benefit the North-East which grows a range of exotic produce and will now able to tap into the international demand chain. But is undermining APMCs the way to go? The new ordinance will allow big corporates to exploit farmers, for it is evident that the farmers do not have much bargaining power. Instead of benefitting from this new competition, there are higher chances that they will become victims of the tug-of-war between mandis and corporates. Lessons learnt from Punjab’s doing away with APMCs and subsequent restorations have proved the same. Farmers from Bihar, a state that eroded APMCs in 2006, flock to Punjab to get fair prices for their produce. (In re second ordinance, it must be noted that many farmer unions have demanded an accompanying amendment that MSP be implemented in the deals outside APMCs to ensure fair-returns)

Uniformity of contractual forming provisions is what the third ordinance propagates, that too without any additional taxes, although many of its provisions are yet to be notified. Contract farming is not a novel thing: it is prevalent with proper rules in multiple states; many contractors and companies have had agreements with farmers through intermediaries. Even landlords and tenants have informal system centering around such a practice in many regions of the country. Newly formulated rules aim to regulate the practice and allow farmers to fetch higher prices by directly deal with corporations. The ordinance provides for a contract that specifies tenure, quality, agreed payment, etc., proper online registration and an official dispute resolution mechanism. All this seems good on paper, but in practice, there are many hurdles that blot this rosy picture. Large number of farmers, especially small and marginalized, would not have much bargaining power on the ground level when faced with big corporations. The same farmers also have unequal access to official dispute resolution forums as compared to hotshot corporates with top-class lawyers.

A Juxtaposition

Unlike industrially developed regions like the US and Europe, agriculture in India is not a very profitable affair. Majority of farmers indulge in subsistence farming to satisfy their own needs and are devoid of technology, HYV seeds, etc. (except for Green Revolution areas like Punjab, Haryana, and western UP). In such an agrarian economy capitalist policies aimed at opening the market ought to be implemented very carefully.

But even the US, largely considered the food bowl of the world, has not escaped the drawbacks that come from excessive agricultural liberalisation. Majority of American farmers rely on exports to fetch a good price for their produce. But the Covid-19 crisis along with a prolonged trade war with China has spelt losses for them. China was a major importer of American agricultural produce, and the tariff one-upping has deprived the farmers of the Chinese market. Apart from this, the entire American agri-business is controlled by a bunch of mega-corporations that increasingly control and manipulate the market, enabling them to dictate prices and push out small farmers and competitors out of business. Their eco-political clout also allows them to influence policymaking. The result is that today an alarming number of farmers want to leave the business, and family farms are over their necks in debt. Excessive industrialization and capitalism have led to over-production, which ultimately translates into poor returns.

Vietnam is a developing country where the agricultural contribution to overall GDP is almost the same as India, and it is on its way to becoming one of the highest rice producers. It has shifted from a collectivized model to deeper integration into the world economy. There is no doubt that technological advances and new liberalizing policies have led to immense development, but there is also a certain price to pay. The country is faced with an environmental crisis due to over-exploitation of resources in a bid to increase production and meet international commitments. There has been an increasing loss of farmer welfare, and the main beneficiaries are foreign companies and MNCs that benefit from lax labour laws and increasingly liberalizing thrust. Lack of transparent information and demand-supply regulation has unleashed a crisis, and hence the government has brought in new reform measures regarding land, food safety, etc. but many are of the view that direct state involvement will not prepare the country for international competition, and it is better to facilitate rather than lead reforms.

Conclusion

The ordinances, prima facie, cannot be said to be redundant or perfect. A policy needs a lot of groundwork and cooperative effort from various stakeholders to be effective.  India is still a heavily agrarian economy with more than 40% of the population employed in the sector. But despite this, it does not have the profits to make up for such widespread participation. This is indication enough that the field is in need of dire reform, and the espoused policies seek to open up agriculture to capitalist forces aiming to liberalize farming and increase gains. Before this can be established, there is a need to bring the average farmer up to mark with the goal that the government seeks. Lack of education, capital and technology has forced farmers to cultivate meagre land-holdings. Even the existing framework of protectionist and fair-price policies like APMC and MSP is inaccessible to a huge section of the tillers, then how will they be able to deal with profit-based corporations. Rather than overhauling and creating an alternative space, there is a need to plug in the loopholes of the existing system in order to ensure efficiency and accessibility.

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