THE All India Kisan Sabha, in a statement issued on March 22, has strongly condemned the recommendation by the Supreme Court appointed committee to bring back the three Farm Acts. AIKS would like to highlight the fact that the members of the SC appointed committee were known for their strong faithfulness to the three Farm Acts unilaterally brought by the union government. That is why the Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) had called for boycotting the SC appointed committee.

It is obvious that all the recommendations of the said committee are aimed to facilitate pro-corporate reforms in agriculture, and hence, needs to be viewed critically.  The observation that 85 per cent of the farmers in the country are in support of the Farm Acts is nothing but a concerted effort to distort the facts and to create a pro-reform environment to facilitate corporate takeover of agricultural land, agricultural markets and agro produces.  There is no institutional system of representation of the farmers’ organisations existing, hence the argument that a ‘silent majority is in support of the Farm Acts’ is a daydream of pro-corporate leaders like Anil Ghanwat.

The recommendation of a cap on procurement of wheat and rice commensurate with the needs of the public distribution system is against the larger interests of the farmers and will further endanger the existing system of procurement based on MSP.

The members of the SC appointed committee have been advocating for implementation of the Farm Acts when there were strong and widespread protests among the peasantry across the country against the same. The promise of implementing the recommendation of the MS Swaminathan committee was not fulfilled by the Modi government, and this continues to be an issue raised by the farmers movement across the country. However, the recommendations reveal that the SC appointed committee was the least interested to recommend MSP@50 per cent of cost of production on all crops, which was promised by the BJP manifesto during the 2014 general election, but has not been implemented in the last seven years tenure of the Modi government.