Can they stop interfering and leave them alone?

Four days back the parliament passed two bills to reform agriculture, which will allow farmers to sell their produce directly to customers and to enter into long term contracts with large companies which manufacture processed food products. The government hopes that these changes will encourage private investment in agriculture which will increase farmers' incomes and reduce wastage by setting up cold chains. At present farmers are forced to sell their produce through Agriculture Produce Market Committees (APMC), known mandis in Hindi, at prices fixed by middlemen. Reforms are essential because, "One, Indian agriculture is highly unremunerative. Two, it has been heavily regulated by the government and protected from the free play of market forces," wrote Misra and Iqbal. The result is that about 55% of Indians are dependent on agriculture but it accounts for only 17% of gross value added (GVA) and 86% of farms are between 1-2 hectares, which is too small to sustain a family, so most farmers are heavily indebted. So why are farmers in Punjab and Haryana protesting when they should be happy to be rid of the shackles? Because of government guarantee of minimum support price (MSP) which is a minimum floor price on 22 crops, but mainly on wheat and rice, over 80% of which goes to just two states, Punjab and Haryana. Former Union Agriculture Secretary Siraj Hussein said, "Punjab and Haryana have been major procuring states where 80-90% of farmers can realise MSP." Prime Minister Narendra Modi said it is a '"watershed moment", while the opposition says they will be "death warrant" for farmers. "The government procurement system acts as a safety cushion, and adds to the bargaining power of the farmer," wrote Ajit Ranade. "Only when government procurement is done, that too through the mandi, does the farmer get full price." Punjab levies mandi tax at 8.5% of total value and "crucially depends on mandi tax revenue, which is above and outside the GST". The government "blatantly crafted" these bills without consulting farmers "to fill the pockets of capitalist cronies of the BJP at the cost of the poor farmers", wrote Chief Minister of Punjab Amarinder Singh. These are "transformative reforms" and "opposition parties are resorting to misinformation and fear- mongering to score political points", wrote Union Minister Hardeep S Puri. "The repercussions will reverberate across the world's second-most populous country" wrote Andy Mukherjee. "Narendra Modi has gambled big before, with some disastrous results. It's asking a lot of people in rural India to trust him again." Can the government stop itself from interfering if prices shoot up due to drought or flood? When onion prices rose recently the government banned exports and released buffer stocks to bring down prices, wrote Roshan Kishore. Which means farmers are prevented from making windfall profits but not from windfall losses. A private market can operate only if politicians stop interfering. Will they? Especially, if an election is coming?