APMC dilution: Price capturing, dispute redressal key to farmers’ interest

Belagavi: The government’s proposal to clip powers of the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee by (APMC) doing away with the concept of notified market area has evoked mixed response from experts and farmers. Fears have been expressed that the move may exploit farmers in the absence of a comprehensive pricing and dispute redressal mechanism.
The proposed promulgation of ordinance by the government to facilitate buying and selling outside notified market yards without the system of licensing will have its own pros and cons.
A former IAS officer associated with NCDEX welcomed the move with specific caveats. The officer said the government must to design a digital infrastructure to capture prices of commodities of varied qualities and locations. This will ensure that prices are constant across the board, he said.
He pointed that even in the existing system, farmers are not compelled to auction at the yards and there are provisions in the APMC Act to sell directly to traders and carry out transactions outside the gates. However, prices are constant and the APMC committee has powers to deal with any injustice meted out to farmers. “The APMC should continue to have these powers to resolve disputes. Otherwise we are merely going back to the 1960’s when APMCs were non-existent. The then governments felt it was best in the interest of farmers to introduce marketing committees which actually helped resolve several problems,” he opined.
Laxman Gowda, an onion grower from Raichur district, said he is ready to sell his produce anywhere, provided the government ensures that he gets to know the prevailing market price. “We learn about the prices of the day through the mandis. For us APMCs are indicators of prices,” he said. Mehboob Pasha, a farmer from Yadgir district said, gullible farmers will be cheated by buyers and traders if prices are not communicated to them on a daily basis.
Chikkegowda, secretary a vegetable traders association in Bengaluru, expressed apprehension that in the new system there will be a possibility of buyers going incommunicado after picking up the produce from growers. “Buyers from far-off places may promise to pay online after buying the produce and after paying a couple of instalments they may go incommunicado. In such cases, in the absence of APMC, it will be considered a regular criminal offence by the government and take years to be solved,”
Sunil Mande from Bengaluru, who is into selling and buying of vegetables, hailed the government’s new proposal as revolutionary. He said middlemen who eat into the profits of farmers will be eliminated from the value chain providing better market access to farmers.
Fears of monopolization
Diluting powers of the APMC will help big companies like Monsanto, More, Reliance, Nilgiris and others monopolise the market, compelling farmers to enter the contract system, said Maruti Manpade, farmer leader from Kalaburagi.