Write about Farm Bill 2020. All about the three Bills. Well explained answer.
Answers
Three Farm Bills-
- The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill 2020
- The Farming Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020
- Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill, 2020.
1. The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill 2020.
It has the word "Empowerment and Protection" which will help the farmer interest. Let's take an example, that one buyer wants to buy some apples and the buyer finds that he got some bad quality apples. Now he will decide to decrease the price for that. Here the farmer gets the loss and gets cheated.
To avoid this a buyer has to get into a legal agreement, and with help of legal agreement, the farmer is not cheated. This bill provides a dispute settlement mechanism between a farmer and a buyer.
But still, looking the complete sentence of the bill we get "Farm service". It includes the demands/conditions of the buyer. Buyer decides the quality of the crop that he wanted and farmer who agrees with that will follow the conditions. Farmer provided with advance and some support from the buyer if he is a big cooperator. Like Producing service, machines, seeds, fertilizers etc.
This act is to promote contract farming and nationwide legal framework. But, the main thing here that the farmer fear that powerful cooperator investor legally dominant him. Even much private company can exploit a farmer easily.
Although observing the demands from any buyer a farmer can't produce according to buyer always and farmers can't fulfil their demands and get exploited.
2. The Farming Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020.
It's talking about trade and commerce, i.e. trading of goods (of the farm) outside the Mandi or APMC(Agricultural Produce Market Committee) yard. Give a better option to the farmers to go out and sell their good without any taxes.
This bill will allow barrier-free trade outside the mandi. The state government will not impose any taxes on sales purchase. Farmers can sell their goods at a better price outside the mandi.
Big farmers who want to sell their abundant goods can gain more profit. For big farmers, there will be a great difference. But the small farmers will feel no difference. As small farmers have fewer goods, they have no interest to sell their goods outside. They can't afford the transportation cost and mostly the low demand for which they will face loss. The government is hurry to pass these bills as the government want to get out of the agricultural business.
Disadvantages:
The farmer's income will depend on the ups and downs of the market. If the demand for any good is high so it is profitable for the farmer. But if the demand for any good is low so the farmer will be in loss. The farmer will be crushed between the rising cost of the goods cultivation and the low cost for the low demand in the market.
Here, by the bill, the farmer will not get any support of help from the government. Like the government will not give any subsidy to the farmer. So, we can say a farmer has to take his own risk and go out and sell his goods.
3. The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill, 2020.
Before getting the total meaning of this statement, first, let's know the meaning of "Essential Commodities Bills". Essential Commodities bills are the law that controls the production, supply, distribution of certain commodities. They are the things which get high demand were at some certain time.
About Essential Commodities Bill.
With help of this bill, the central government can include new commodities as and then when they need for that commodity arises. Also, the government can take out them from essential commodities when the situation is under control or when the situation is improved.
Example- Due to pandemic (COVID-19) there was a huge demand for masks, sanitisers, hand washes etc. Their prize was increased. Normal people couldn't afford them. So, the government put them in essential commodities. After this, their prices were decreased and normal people were able to buy them. The right price was decided.
And when the situation a controllable they were removed from the essential commodities.
The Amendment that has been suggested and then added in this bill is regarding 'removing certain commodities as essential commodities as essential.' So, that it will allow the government to regulate the supply and prices in cases of war, famine, high price rise or natural calamities. And the commodities are the daily usage items like cereals, pulses, potatoes, onion, oils, oilseeds.
So, when they are removed from the essential commodities and will be only added in any natural calamities.
Hence, obviously, there will be the growth of the price of those items.
We can conclude that it will affect the normal life of people and boosting the farmer's income. There is a high chance of hoarding.
Answer:
One, the bills give greater freedom to farmers to sell their produce. They will abolish intermediaries, or at least some levels of intermediaries between farmers and buyers. This will ensure that the farmer gets a bigger share of the price paid by the consumer and will, therefore, improve agricultural ..
hope it helps..