Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: While farmers from Punjab, Haryana, and Western Uttar Pradesh, among others, are agitating for more than two months, demanding the repeal of the three reformist agri-laws, their counterparts in parts of Maharashtra are enriching themselves by selling their products outside the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committees (APMCs), or mandis, which the new legislation provides them.
Data available from four districts of Maharashtra suggest that these farmers earned nearly Rs.10 crore between October and December 2020 by selling their produce outside the mandis, according to media reports on Monday.
Benefiting from the freedom the new laws provide, farmers’ procurement centers (FPCs) have established a new, alternative marketing channel, which constantly updates farmers with comparative rates on their social media groups or via SMSes. This helps them decide where and to whom they should sell their products profitably.
The FPCs are also ensuring that trade commitments are implemented and farmers get their money as scheduled for their products sold on such outside-APMC platforms, officials said.
A consortium of around 400 FPCs has come up under the umbrella of Maharashtra Farmers’ Producers Company (MahaFPC) to tap alternative markets outside mandis. The new farm law about the APMCs gives freedom to farmers to choose their market. If the rates in such a market are higher than the MSP, they can sell the products outside the mandis to FPCs. Alternately, when market rates are less than in the mandis, they can sell at the APMCs on MSP.
According to MahaFPC estimates, Tur (arhar dal) and soybean farmer-members in four districts—Hingoli, Latur, Nanded, and Usmanabad—earned Rs. 10 crores by selling their produce outside the mandis as they got higher returns at FPCs between October and December 2020.
Interestingly, the FPCs in Satara have even set up their own mart to market their products outside the mandis whenever they get a higher price compared to MSPs.
The Maharashtra Shetkari Sanghatana may be officially supporting the farmers’ agitation but its breakaway faction has been encouraging farmers to sell their products to FPCs and private players to get handsome returns, the reports said.
According to the FPCs, the Supreme Court’s stay on the implementation of farm laws has hampered sales outside mandis. Due to this stay, the government could not proceed with any executive actions to enforce the laws.