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200 Plus Days - Farm Laws, Farmers and Food -SG Vombatkere

-TheCitizen.in

The Farmers’ agitation starting November 26 2020, was against three Farm Laws. The Essential Commodities Amendment Act, 2020, (ECA Act) is one of them.

ECA Act amends the Essential Commodities Act, 1955, (EC Act) enacted “in the interest of the general public, for the control of the production, supply and distribution of, and trade and commerce”, and more precisely, “for controlling the rise in prices or preventing the hoarding of any food-stuff”.

The “general public” envisaged in the 1955 EC Act is every person who purchases food to eat, noting that farmers are also food consumers and members of the general public. Rise in food prices not only affects the lowest economic sections but also the lower middle class, together over 80% of our population.

Between the food-producing farmer at the start of the food chain and the consumer at the end of the food chain, is the “market” – credit-providers (moneylenders and banks), traders, stockists, wholesalers and retailers. The food price paid by a consumer depends not only upon how the market operates, but also upon how the government regulates it in the public interest.

Hoarding agri-produce for profiteering has been there for decades. Knowing this, the government enacted the 1955 EC Act, to protect the public from hoarders. It regulated seven essential commodities, especially foodstuffs, including edible oilseeds and oils, in times when India was importing food, because of insufficient food production and widespread hunger.

In the decades since then, although India’s food production has increased manifold, so has its population. Hunger and malnutrition are still realities for a majority of our population, mainly because of rising food costs.

The ECA Act removes cereals, pulses, oilseeds, edible oils, onion and potatoes, from the list of essential commodities. However, Section 2 of ECA Act amends Section 3 of the EC Act, permitting regulation of foodstuffs (cereals, pulses, potato, onions, edible oilseeds and oils),“only under extraordinary circumstances which may include war, famine, extraordinary price rise and natural calamity of grave nature”. The central government decides and declares one of the four circumstances.

War is undoubtedly an extraordinary circumstance. However, declaring famine is a political issue. This is demonstrated by the word “famine” being deleted from all the laws of Maharashtra, by the “Maharashtra Deletion of the Term "famine" (From Laws applicable to the State) Act, 1963”, thus ending famine forever, without providing even one kilogram of food for any person in Maharashtra. Thus, it is more than likely that for political reasons, the central government will never invoke ‘famine’ as an extraordinary circumstance of the ECA Act.

The on-going Covid crisis began in January 2020, and rapidly developed into a grave national calamity due to natural causes. Yet, the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Ordinance, 2020, was promulgated in June 2020, and the ECA Act 2020, received the assent of the President in September 2020, both well into the natural calamity of the Covid crisis. Thus, it is certain that the government will not invoke the extraordinary circumstance of ‘natural calamity’.

That leaves the extraordinary circumstance of “extraordinary price rise” that may justify imposition of limits. A whole subsection in ECA Act Section 2 is dedicated to stating what “trigger” of retail price rise is considered “extraordinary”: For Horticultural produce, 100% increase, and for Non-perishable agri-foodstuffs, 50% increase, “over the price prevailing immediately preceding twelve months, or average retail price of last five years, whichever is lower”.

The corporations which control the market can avoid the government imposing stocking limits, by raising prices without exceeding the trigger retail price.

Thus, the four “extraordinary circumstances” required for the government to impose stocking limits on “foodstuffs, including cereals, pulses, potato, onions, edible oilseeds and oils“,will most likely never occur.

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