EVERYTHING WRONG WITH THE FARM LAWS - A THREAD

(1/n) MSP: Minimum Support Price. This is the minimum price the government offers to the farmer on their produce. Being a policy decision, these weren't a part of any laws. But if the farm laws are really good, why not include MSP as a law?

(2/n)APMC Mandis: This is the place where the farmer goes and sells their produce. The new laws will give the farmer the freedom to sell their produce anywhere but here's the catch:

(3/n)Mandis charge a small amount for it's maintanence which then ensures that the Mandi system continues and the farmer gets to sell their produce at a fair price. But due to the new law, private players can buy the produce from the farmers at a higher price than what the-

(4/n) -mandi offers. This would mean that all the farmers would be tempted to sell their produce at a higher price initially. This doesn't sound bad but when this happens, the Mandi system is forced to systematically crumble due to these laws.

(5/n)This, in turn would mean that the farmers cannot sell their anywhere but to the private player. The private players can now dictate terms to the farmers, because, well they don't have a choice to sell it elsewhere.

(6/n) These laws would mean private players controlling the market. Think about what happened with telecommunication, healthcare and education when private players entered the scene. They established a monopoly.

(7/n) Contract Farming : Multi national companies make a contract with the farmer to sell a particular amount of produce for a particular season. This can be, and in many cases, is being misused by the MNCs.

(8/n) If these MNCs don't like farmer's produce' quality, they can exploit them into selling it into a lower price than what was mentioned in the original contract. And for the farmer to complain, they can only go to the SDM or DC. No judicial system is involved!

(n/n) Last, these laws do away with the limits on hoarding food grains. So, every private player can buy huge amounts of produce for a particular food commodity and hoard them. And this is simple economics, whoever controls the supply, controls the price.

These are some of the issues I found wrong with the farm laws after reading on them from newspaper articles and editorials. Please add more if I missed something. Peace.