After passing Contract Farming Act under its regime, Cong’s opposition to farm laws hypocritical: Prakash Javadekar

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Calling the opposition parties — who supported Tuesday’s Bharat bandh call by farmers — “hypocrites”, Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting Prakash Javadekar on Tuesday appealed to the farmers to understand that the recently enacted farm laws, against which they have been protesting, are in their favour.

“I have full confidence that this matter will be resolved. If the farmers have any confusion, then it is our job to clear them. We’ll solve their problems. But, the Congress, who is asking to roll back these laws, is hypocritical as they themselves had passed the Contract Farming Act while in power. Many states, ruled by the opposition parties, also accepted the Model Act on Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC), proposed by Sharad Pawar. Congress also mentioned the introduction of these laws in their manifesto,” said Javadekar.

The model legislation titled the State Agricultural Produce Marketing (Development and Regulation) Act, 2003, provides for the establishment of private markets/yards, direct purchase centres, and consumer/farmers markets for direct sale.

The minister stated that all the main demands of the farmers are being considered by the central government and if any important amendment is required, it is open to bringing that.

“Farmers have two main demands — they want to confirm if APMCs and minimum support price (MSP) will remain? The answer to this is clear, both APMCs and MSP will continue as they have since their inception. This year’s procurement by the government, despite the laws in place, is proof of that. Lakhs of farmers in Punjab sold their produce in APMCs on MSP this year too,” he said.

Javadekar added that the central government has taken the recommendation proposed by the Swaminathan Commission for the calculation of MSP and changed the formula.

“The farmers earlier demanded that they should get a remunerative price based on the recommendation of the Swaminathan Commission’s report. The report said that the remuneration cost of the crops should be 50 per cent more than the cost price, and our government is doing that. Only the formula for the calculation of the MSP changed, the process remains the same,” the minister said, adding the Centre had full faith that the farmers will understand and the misconceptions will be cleared.

The farmers are protesting against the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020, the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020, and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020.