Defective And Controversial Farm Laws Must Be Repealed And Better Laws Must Be Enacted

The fight between central govt and Indian farmers has reached at stage where central govt cannot ignore it anymore. This has happened because of the stubborn attitude of central govt for not accommodating the opinions and beliefs of various stakeholders. The central govt preferred to hard push farm laws by using the under the carpet methodology and using the concurrent list. That itself is a big hint that something really bad is about to happen.

But even on merits, the recent farm laws are poorly drafted and they are putting farmer’s interest in serious jeopardy. As in the past the govt is relying upon false promises and media propaganda but farmers are not willing to swallow the bitter pills like demonetisation and GST. They know that after the manufacturing and service sectors, it is the turn of agriculture sector. Once agriculture sector is compromised, the entire occupational structure of India would be compromised as manufacturing and services sectors have already collapsed with the recently collapsed Indian economy.

Just like crops cannot be sustained with weeds and pests, interest of farmers cannot be protected and sustained with these defective and controversial farm laws in place. That is why farmers are insisting upon their repeal and that is also the right thing to do. If they agree to amendments to these unwanted and undesirable laws, the poisonous seeds of these laws would create many casualties in near future.

Indian economy is not in a good shape and the Covid-19 pandemic has made the situation worst. Despite the glorious image portrayed by media, real position at the ground level is really bad. Introducing private players in the agriculture equation is bound to raise eyebrows.

AFPOH would help Indian farmers on the fronts of online legal services and dispute resolution, education, skills development and trainings, export and import assistance, establishing marketplaces and e-commerce portals, MSP, etc. Farmers should not use a dispute resolution method that is bureaucratic in nature. Instead, they must use either courts or our online dispute resolution (ODR) portals for effective, timely and economical dispute resolution. They should also not use an e-commerce portal, online portal or contract farming agreement without the ODR clause of our startup TeleLaw. Stakeholders can chat with us at our blog for help or contact us at Twitter, e-mail, WhatsApp, etc.

Irrespective of the fact that the farm laws remain or not remain on the statute book, P4LO and its startups like AFPOH and TeleLaw can help farmers and rural communities to safeguard their interests and increase their incomes many folds.