Farmers may not be as foolish as made out to be.

Taking aim at Profs Kaushik Basu and Raghuram Rajan, Prof Arvind Panagariya wrote, "Both CEAs had thus endorsed the entry of not just private companies but also foreign multi-brand retailers in agricultural marketing. Yet, both have now argued that the new laws open the door to the exploitation of farmers by private companies." New farm laws allow farmers to sell their produce to private companies bypassing government controlled wholesale markets, known as Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC), Since the government procures produce at a minimum support price (MSP) only through APMCs the farmers fear they will lose this assured price. "Government figures show that Food Corporation of India procurement has far exceeded the buffer stock limit and by January 1, 2021, India will have foodgrain reserves 2.7 times more than what is required, reflecting sustained procurement but also a massive problem of plenty." According to former Union Minister for Consumer Affairs, Ram Vilas Paswan 1,930 tonnes of food grains were wasted in 2019-20, which was 0.002 percent of total procurement of 7.52 million metric tonnes. Wastage is due to rotting and being eaten by rodents and MSP makes grains too expensive to export. Panagariya reminds us that "private corporations such as Nestle and Hatsun have been buying milk from hundreds of thousands of small milk producers side-by-side with government cooperatives for years". Indeed, but a private cooperative for milk Amul was set up in 1946 and set the basis for buying milk at fair prices. "Both of us have argued in the past that India's farm laws are antiquated, that the APMC Acts need reform," agreed Prof Kaushik Basu and Nirvikar Singh, but, the "new regulatory system seems to ignore the fact that, farmers, the world over, receive subsidies and protection". A few days back, a group of economists wrote to Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar "requesting the government to repeal the central farm laws which, they claimed, were not in the best interests of small and marginal farmers". The state of the rural economy can be judged by wages of agricultural laborers, which "increased in both real and nominal terms in May and June" just after the lockdown was lifted, but have been "declining thereafter until September, by when real wages of general agricultural labor were down 0.3% from year earlier, while those of non-agricultural workers were down 1.3%", wrote Prof Himanshu. Farm-gate prices have been declining as shown by the wholesale price index (WPI). "Increasing government support to the agriculture sector is the real reform needed at this hour." Farmers have given a point-by-point rebuttal of the government's arguments that these Acts will only benefit farmers, wrote AA Chaba. "India is going through an erosion of trust in recent times. I just hope we have the sense to come together," said Prof Basu. And, trust cannot be rammed down the throats of citizens. Or, obtained through mendacity.