The Punjab government has been very active in the last few days to review the draft of the Centre’s new Agriculture Marketing Policy and also sought three weeks’ time from the Center to form its opinion on the same and the Center has also approved it on the draft. They have given time till January 10 to give their opinion. It is hoped that the Punjab government will now be able to adopt a solid and fair stance towards this policy arrangement, which is considered important for the agricultural sector of the state. After Punjab Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Minister Gurmeet Singh Khudian held discussions with senior officials of various departments earlier this week, the views of representatives of farmers’ organizations on the draft agricultural marketing policy will be known on Thursday. As far as the farmers’ organizations are concerned, the farmers’ leaders who participated in this discussion have made it clear that the government is trying to promote those items in the agricultural marketing policy which are called as ‘Agricultural Produce Trade and Commerce Act, 2020’. ‘ and through two other laws an attempt was made to consolidate the farmers. These laws were repealed due to the exemplary movement fought under the leadership of Punjab farmers, under which more than 700 farmers had to sacrifice their lives.
At present, when the struggle is being waged under the leadership of the farmers of Punjab to legalize the minimum support price (MSP) and ensure government procurement of all crops, meanwhile, the central government has brought out the draft of the agricultural marketing policy. The draft was sent to the Punjab government at the end of last month and it was asked to send its opinion in this regard within 15 days. It is not reasonable to expect a state like Punjab to give its final opinion on the marketing of an important sector like agriculture within 15 days. There is a need to discuss this matter at different levels because the interests of not only farmers but also many other parties like laborers and farmers are connected with agricultural marketing. A basic point has emerged from the stand of farmers’ organizations that they do not consider the interference of corporate companies in the marketing of crops, especially the way the central government is paving the way for them. Agriculture is not just a business, but it is related to the food security of crores of people of the country, in view of which it can be a big mistake to see it as purely personal profit or loss reduction.