Draft agri marketing policy framework riddled with gaps: ASHA

The Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture (ASHA) has strongly criticised the Draft National Policy Framework on Agricultural Marketing, released by the Department of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare recently. ASHA claims the draft is a veiled attempt to reintroduce the repealed farm laws and deregulate agricultural markets, leaving farmers vulnerable to market exploitation.

It said the Union Government should have conducted widespread national consultation while preparing the draft, which was released on November 25 seeking feedback from stakeholders in 15 days.

ASHA, an umbrella association of non-governmental organisations, farmers associations and agricultural scientists from across the country, submitted its feedback to the draft committee on Sunday.

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The association alleged that it was an attempt by the Union Government to revive its agenda of de-regulating agricultural markets, and leaving the farmers at the mercy of corporate players. 

The draft policy was formulated without adequate consultation with state governments, despite acknowledging that agricultural marketing is a state subject. 

“The fact that the draft policy framework does not talk about the regulation of agricultural markets as a key strategy reinforces our apprehension that the repealed farm laws are being brought in once again through a backdoor entry,” Rajinder Chaudhary and Kavitha Kuruganti, Co-Convenors of ASHA, said in their feedback.

“This draft does not talk about the long-pending demand for making MSP a legal guarantee. If this policy framework is to enable farmers to realise the best price for their produce, the benchmark has to be set at the MSP at least,” they said.

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They also pointed out that the policy lacked concrete proposals for bridging the infrastructure gaps in agricultural marketing. The draft policy did not consider the impact of international trade policies on farmers and ways to protect the farmers from such barriers, if any. 

“The policy promotes private and unregulated markets without addressing the data unavailability and other issues associated with them,” they said.