Sunday 7th February 2021
Kisaan Rally
In September 2020 the Indian Parliament passed three new agricultural bills, the bill was introduced to allow farmers to sell their products to markets outside of government-controlled markets such as the APMC. Agricultural Produce Market Committee.
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On the 9th of August 2020, an ongoing protest broke out amongst the Parliament of India and the Farmer unions.
The protest was begun due to a stir in fair trade prices in exchange for their goods, and a reform of laws as well as new agriculture acts being introduced, often referred to as the Farm Bills.
The bill did not specify details that would potentially affect future business deals. Details missed in the bill were minimum support price (MSP) that would ensure farmers accept fair prices for their goods. Another was the law not stating that written contracts are mandatory therefore making it difficult to testify against a buyer if there are any breaches in a contract.
The majority of Punjab’s farmers are Sikhs who depend on cultivation in order to provide for their families and earn livelihoods.
A majority of jobs in India are within the agricultural industry. Most of the farmers in Punjab are Sikhs they provide over 20% of wheat and 9% rice in India.
This means it calculates to a good spread of the global production of crops worldwide. Punjab alone provides an outstanding amount of crops nationally and globally every year,Therefore these numbers show us the importance of farmland and the impact it may cause.
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Farming for Sikhs is a historical and cultural activity that carries deep meaningful roots in their community, but this new bill has caused a great increase of anxiety and fear for farmers across Punjab
People and farmers themselves are worried that they may not be able to negotiate a fair price for themselves in exchange of their services
Most of the farmers in Punjab live off low incomes which support an entire family, this is because the farm labourers own smalls portions of land which equates to roughly two hectares worth of land (five acres).
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Many of the Farmers in Punjab owe overwhelming amounts of debts. this number has rise by 61% in the last 30 years. Depression and anxiety rates have also risen in the Punjab farming community due to lack of money insecurities, This problem predominantly minately affects small and marginalised farmers.
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The increase of debts has resulted to higher rates of suicide for these farmers. Around 3,330 Punjabi farmers have committed ited suicide since 2000.
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