Centre proposes GST-like panel to push lapsed farm reforms
In June, the agriculture ministry formed a panel to prepare a draft national policy framework on agricultural marketing.
A draft national agricultural policy prepared by the Centre and released for public comments has recommended several reforms, most of which were part of the three contentious farm laws the government had to repeal in 2021 due to protests by farmers.

In June, the agriculture ministry, soon after the Modi government returned to power for a third time, had formed a panel headed by additional secretary Faiz Ahmed Kidwai to prepare a draft national policy framework on agricultural marketing.
The committee, which finalised the draft recently, has recommended the setting up of an empowered Centre-states committee “on the lines of” a panel formed to implement the Goods and Services Tax.
The draft has proposed private wholesale markets outside the purview of state-regulated agricultural produce market committees or APMC, enhanced competition in agricultural markets, direct purchase of produce from farmers bypassing APMCs and a policy on contract farming, all of which were part of the repealed farm laws.
The three scrapped laws were the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020, Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020 and Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act 2020.
The “vision” of the government, outlined in the draft, is “to build a vibrant marketing ecosystem in the country wherein farmers…find a market of their choice to realise best price for their produce”
Protesting farm unions had alleged, at the time, that liberalising provisions in the three laws would leave them at the mercy of big corporations, who could dictate prices and wean them off a system of federally fixed floor prices, known as minimum support prices or MSP. India heavily subsidises agriculturists but the sector, which supports nearly half the population, has long been hobbled by inefficiencies, lack of scale due to land fragmentation and poor returns.
Proposing private markets, the draft states that farmers should have access to “any channel of marketing (APMC mandi, private market, direct marketing, online through e-trading platforms, tertiary markets through electronic commodity exchanges, etc).” This was a key provision in the farm laws.
“Private markets are required to create competition among them and with other channels of marketing including APMC markets,” the draft states. The draft also recommends direct wholesale purchase by food processors, exporters and organised retailers from farmers.
Recommending contract farming, another provision of the farm laws, the draft states that such farming contracts can be “instrumental in materialising cost- effective production and assured market at pre-agreed price.”
“It is clear that competition gets enhanced by making trade transactions visible and transparent. Such visibilising requires government oversight and regulation,” said Kavitha Kuruganthi, an activist who was one of the negotiators appointed by the Sanyukt Kisan Morcha to talk to the government during the 2020-21 protests.
“The reform initiatives in the draft are essentially an attempt to revive the key provisions in the farm laws that had to be repealed, owing to farmers’ resistance,” Kuruganthi’s organisation, AASHA, wrote in a letter the farm ministry on Sunday. A leader of the ongoing farm protests in Haryana, Sarwan Singh Pandher, said farmers wanted a “legal guarantee for support prices before anything else”.
