New farm Acts, 2020: Rationale and challenges

Abstract

The recent development agenda in agriculture aims towards making the sector remunerative, competitive and sustainable through accelerating ongoing transformation and addressing the emerging challenges. The enactment of new farm Acts, 2020 has led to an intense debate with arguments both in favour and against their likely implications on farmers’ welfare and the agricultural sector. This article evidently examines the rationality of enacting new farm Acts, and discusses critical issues for their effective implementation and realizing the intended benefits. These Acts aim to create an ecosystem for efficient and competitive marketing and foster investment in post-production stages. Realization of intended benefits requires strengthening of aggregating institutions like farmer producer organizations, creating enabling conditions for competition between Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) mandis and outside trade, and developing an effective market intelligence and price information system for efficient price discovery outside APMCs.