Protests against the new farm laws have entered a crucial phase, with the Supreme Court proposing a joint committee of farmers and government representatives to discuss the points of disagreements. How negotiations pan out is an open question with an obdurate opposition meeting an implacable government. At the heart of the issue is the stability and growth of farm incomes, especially for the big farmers of Punjab who are blockading Delhi’s borders. As
T C A Srinivasa Raghavan explains in his column, the
Minimum Support Price at the heart of the protests seeks to smoothen the income stream for farmers and “is more like a salary. Diluting it by having competing markets is like having “variable pay, a way of reducing the actual cost to the company, which in the case of agriculture is the government”. Read his deconstruction of the issue
here.
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