Farmers Agitation

Extracted from:  https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/01/07/living-in-epoch-defining-times-food-agriculture-and-the-new-world-order/Colin Todhunter, Jan 7 2022

In April 2021, the Indian government signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Microsoft, allowing its local partner CropData to leverage a master database of farmers. The MoU seems to be part of the AgriStack policy initiative, which involves the roll out of ‘disruptive’ technologies and digital databases in the agricultural sector.

CropData will be granted access to a government database of 50 million farmers and their land records. As the database is developed, it will include farmers’ personal details, profile of land held, production data and financial details.

In addition to facilitating data harvesting and a data management market, the Indian government is trying to establish a system of ‘conclusive titling’ of all land in the country, so that ownership can be identified and land can then be valued, bought or taken away.

The plan is that, as farmers lose access to land or can be identified as legal owners, predatory global institutional investors will buy up and amalgamate holdings, facilitating the further roll out of high-input, corporate-dependent industrial agriculture.

This is an example of stakeholder-partnership capitalism, much promoted by the likes of the World Economic Forum, whereby a government facilitates the gathering of such information by a private player which can then, in this case, use the data for developing a land market (courtesy of land law changes that the government enacts) for institutional investors at the expense of smallholder farmers who will find themselves displaced.

By harvesting information – under the benign-sounding policy of data-driven agriculture – private corporations will be better placed to exploit farmers’ situations for their own ends.

But none of this is set in stone or inevitable. The farmers victory in India in getting the corporate-friendly farm laws repealed show what can be achieved, even if this is only viewed as a spanner in the works of a global machine that is relentless.

'Silent Majority' Supported the Three Farm Laws: SC-Appointed Committee Report https://thewire.in/agriculture/farm-laws-supreme-court-committee-report-released Anil Ghanwant, one of the three members of the committee, made the report public on Monday.

Statiscally, an overwhelming 85.7% of the farmer organisations the committee directly interacted with lent support to the three controversial farm laws. 

Out of the 266 farmer organisations to whom invitations were sent, the committee could directly interact with only 73 organisations. The report claims that out of these 73 organisations, 61 organisations (85.7%) representing over 3.3 crore farmers fully supported the laws. Four farmers’ organisations, representing 51 lakh farmers (13.3%), did not support the Act. Another seven farmer organisations, representing 3.6 lakh farmers (1%) supported the Acts with some suggestions for modifications. Further, Ghanwat said the 40 unions, which had organised agitations against the laws under the banner of the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM), did not make any submission despite repeated requests.

Ghanwat said the 40 unions, which had organised agitations against the laws under the banner of the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM), did not make any submission despite repeated requests. However, their concerns, as ascertained from media reports and interactions with Government, have been kept in mind by the Committee, while formulating its recommendations,” the report reads, according to the Indian Express.

Comment: But their concerns where not included in the headline,  of the same story.. So going by Ghamwat's stat of 266 farmers who were contacted on 61 organisation came back with a support for the three laws..  means that more than two thirds of farmers organisations boycotted the questionnaire. The report then has an online opinion poll, which asks leading questions.. and of course they say that two third support the black laws. They ignore that fact that while the black laws may enable some thing, it disables and makes difficult hitherto beneficial provisions. It pretends that the only way to be more free and give more options to the farmers is to allow all kinds of elements, like corporates to have a role.. It ignores the responsibility of the State to facilitate good cooperative systems.....

'73 में से 61 किसान संगठन कानून के साथ', SC की बनाई Committee ने किया बड़ा दावा | 5 Ki Baat  Mar 22, 2022
एक साल तक देश की राजधानी की सीमाओं पर कृषि कानूनों के खिलाफ किसान आंदोलन चला. फिर ठीक चुनावों से पहले कानून रद्द कर दिए गए. एक साल तक इन कानूनों की समीक्षा के लिए सुप्रीम कोर्ट की बनाई कमेटी कि रिपोर्ट अदालत के पास रही. उसे ना तो सार्वजनिक किया गया, ना उस पर कोई कार्रवाई हुई.

'जब आंदोलनकारी संगठनों से बात नहीं की गई, तो ये संगठन कौन थे?': किसान नेता Yogendra Yadav 
Mar 22, 2022

सुप्रीम कोर्ट (Supreme Court) की कमेटी और उसके रिपोर्ट पर सवाल खड़े करते हुए किसान नेता योगेंद्र यादव (Yogendra Yadav) ने NDTV से कहा कि, 'सबसे बड़ा सवाल ये है कि आंदोलनकारी संगठनों से बात नहीं की गई. ऐसे में ये 73 संगठन कौन थे, जिनसे बात की गई? कम से कम इस बात से पर्दा तो उठा.'

Comments: AA.. Avik Saha's talk on the report of the committee, I listened to. (In English). He said the committee has gone beyond it's mandate from the Supreme court and made 2 recommendations. 1) Cut down procurement for MSP and 2) Dismantle the PDS and give DBT to ration card holders. If true, these two measures will seriously damage food security.

किसान आंदोलन की पृष्ठभूमि में बजट की पड़ताल   https://www.lokjivan.in/home/kisaan-aandolan-kee-prshthabhoomi-mein-bajat-kee-padataal/  Dr. Anil Kumar Roy February 11, 2022  

(extract using google translate) About 90 percent of the farmers of the country are farmers with less than one hectare of land holding. They are not able to produce enough, which they can sell in the market and get remunerative price.

One of the main reasons for the fury of the farmers was the law of contract farming, as a result of which there was a danger of capitalists/companies taking possession of the agricultural land. After the failure to implement the agricultural laws, the budget has made way for companies and capitalists in the name of 'private agritech players and stakeholders' by making a dent in the PPP mode. There is a practical principle of the economy that where the big capital companies put their feet, the government or small capital ones get cut, as can be seen in the cases of telecom service, television, education, health etc. That is, the way has been made in the budget to admit the 'private agritech players', it is the return of the same contract farming laws in a new dress.

Millions of Farmers Hit Streets to Observe Day of Betrayal and Remind Centre of its Promises Ravi Kaushal 31 Jan 2022 https://www.newsclick.in/millions-farmers-streets-observe-day-betrayal-remind-centre-its-promises
After repealing three farm laws, the Centre had made certain promises to the protesting farmers, including forming a committee on MSP, withdrawal of cases registered during the agitation, and addressal of concerns about the Electricity Amendment Act.
Ravi Kaushal 31 Jan 2022

Talking to NewsClick, Jagmati Sangwan, a veteran activist of the women's movement in the state who played an instrumental role in bringing women into the agitation, said, "What is remarkable about this government is that you need to mobilise people every time to remind them about our issues. We first hold meetings and agitations to seek their attention, then hold dharnas again to compel their commitment and finally ask them to act on their promises.

The news about the protests has been pouring in from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat and Kerala. The uniform memorandum addressed to the President of India by morcha members stated the promise in the letter by the Centre was: "The cases filed against farmers during the farmers' movement will be withdrawn with immediate effect.