What is APMC and MSP? Why Farmers are protesting for it?

Thousands of Farmershave been protesting against the contentious farm laws since 15 days in the National Capital. Protesting farmers fear that the amendment to the APMC Acts will deprive them of the Minimum Support Price (MSP) and they will be left at the mercy of multinational companies and big corporate houses.

Moreover, the major two issues of the farmer's agitation are- I)the fear that minimum support price (MSP) will not be enforced once private mandis come up; and ii) the amendment of the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) Act.

Let's know about the APMC act and MSP in detail.

What is APMC/APMC Kya hai

Agricultural Produce Market Committees (APMC) is the marketing boards established by the state governments in order to eliminate the exploitation incidences of the farmers by the intermediaries, where they are forced to sell their produce at extremely low prices.

All the food produce must be brought to the market and sales are made through auction. The market place i.e, Mandi is set up in various places within the states. These markets geographically divide the state. Licenses are issued to the traders to operate within a market. The mall owners, wholesale traders, retail traders are not given permission to purchase the produce from the farmers directly.

Why APMC Act is Essential for Farmers?

The legislation of 1964 had undergone several modifications over the years to protect farmers against abuse and exploitations by middlemen at the time of price discovery, weighing and measurement of produces or while making payment after the transaction.

Far-reaching changes were incorporated into the APMC Act such as creation of a revolving fund to implement the Floor Price Scheme to protect the interests of farmers, allowing contract farming companies to procure directly from farmers with a predetermined agreed price and so on. e-marketing initiative of the State Department of Agriculture Marketing is considered as a novel one and emulated by several States.

What is APMC Yard?

Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) Yard / Regulated Market Committees (RMC) Yard is any place in the market area managed by a Market Committee, for the purpose of regulation of marketing of notified agricultural produce and livestock in physical, electronic or other such mode. -The place shall include any structure, enclosure, open space locality, street including warehouse/silos/pack house/cleaning, grading , packaging and processing unit pesent in the Market Committee of the defined market area.

What is Minimum Support Price?

The minimum support price is an agricultural product price set by the Government of India to purchase directly from the farmer. This rate is to safeguard the farmer to a minimum profit for the harvest, if the open market has lesser price than the cost incurred.

What was the need of introducing MSP?

On the path of the Green Revolution, Indian policymakers realised that the farmers needed incentives to grow food crops. Otherwise, they won’t opt for crops such as wheat and paddy as they were labour-intensive and didn’t fetch lucrative prices. Hence, to incentivise the farmers and boost production, the MSP was introduced in the 1960s.

How many APMCs are linked to eNAM?

Currently there are 1000 markets that are linked to the eNAM network from 18 states and 3 UT's.

Moreover, the Centre is likely to send a new proposal over Agricultural Produce Market Committees (APMCs) to protesting farmers after farmer's rejected government’s proposal on MSP and stayed firm on scrapping farm laws.