From The Ground

While the farmer agitation against the government’s legislations on agriculture has been intense, ThePrint argues that the beneficiaries of such struggles have not always been small and marginal farmers. Farmer movements, more often than not, have resulted in furthering the interests of big farmers with very little accruing to marginal farmers, and farm labour. The story brought out the fact that, like the large and medium industry bodies in India, the farmers – big and small - should unite as a group. This unity will help them bargain for better and effective policy reforms, ensuring that the benefits are not to be restricted to a few.

In the wake of the farmer protests erupting across the country against the Farm Bills passed by parliament, Down to Earth finds that the agitations are not a recent phenomenona. There have been at least 50 major farmer protests in 20 states in the past nine months alone. This is a result of issues such as continued indebtedness, lack of effective crop insurance and remunerative prices. The story highlights the fact that the agrarian crisis and the fundamental issues that farmers face have been long in the making and not been addressed for years.

Asiaville covered the protests in Punjab and Haryana from the ground. The reporter spoke to agitating farmers in Punjab's Patiala, who putting aside the fears of COVID-19 voiced their dissent against the government’s move of - "favouring the corporates" through removal of MSP, implementation of contract farming and hidden dangers in the amended Essential Commodities Act. This ground report focused attention on the struggles and demands of farmers, when the mainstream media was acting as a "weapon of mass distraction" totally ignoring such critical issues.