Agricultutal marketing system - a review of reforms and recommendations of supreme court appointed committee on farm laws

The objective of this paper is to review the attempts to reform the agricultural marketing system since independence, including the three farm laws that have been recently repealed and recommendations of the Supreme Court appointed Committee. As agriculture is a state subject, Government of India formulated a Model Acts for adoption by the state governments. Government of India kept prompting the states to adopt them.The first Model Act 1 wascirculated in late 1950s and most states adopted it in 1960s and enacted their respective State APMC Acts. APMC Acts provide a market place, ensures proper weighment, provide auction system for price discovery and ensure payment to the farmers for their produce. But it is felt by some that these Acts kept the farmers shackled by requiring them to go through the APMC system and left room for their exploitation in terms of low prices. Therefore, Model Acts of 2003, 2017, and 2018 were formulated for adoption by the State Governments. The Model Acts referred above did not achieve all the desired objectives fully. Some of the reasons are as follows: i) Long delay in legislating these Model Acts by the States.Model Acts framed by Government of India are not binding on the State Government till they are adopted by them. ii) All the States did not make amendments in their own APMC Acts or only partially adopted them. iii) Some changes were made in the APMC Acts which were not in line or intent of Model Contract farming Acts circulated by the Centre. For example, Rajasthan Amendment Bill, 2020 assumes that sponsors can lease farm land. Similarly, In Punjab Act, there is provision of jail term for both parties This is not in the model contract 2018. The agriculture trade is on concurrent list. Using this window, Government of India formulated 3 major reform laws. As there was opposition from a section of farmers, Hon'ble Supreme Court appointed a Committee to look into the 3 farm laws and give recommendations. The Committee submitted its recommendations. Meanwhile the 3 farm laws were repealed by GOI. But some of the recommendations of the Committee are still useful to strengthen the agricuture marketing system and enable the creation of inclusive integrated value chain. This article reviews the operation of various model Acts including the operations of National Agricluture Market and Farmer producer companies. The article reviews the recommendations of the committee and their likely impact on the desired goal. The article also brings out the task ahead in creating direct link between farmers and processors/consumers, even after the repeal of 3 reform Acts.