Minister for Agriculture S. Niranjan Reddy has strongly objected to three farmers’ Bills passed by Parliament stating that they had the potential to take both the farming community and the farm produce into the control of the corporate sector in the absence lack of government control on the farm produce.
In a statement, the Minister said on Monday that once implemented the new Bills (Acts) would reduce agriculture production market committee into non-entities as they would not have any say even in the event of dispute between farmers and corporate companies. Stating that over 92% farmers in Telangana were small and marginal landholders, the Minister said without any provision of minimum support price in the new legislation, the farmers would be at perennial loss.
The Bills would also mean price rise since they would allow traders to hoard the commodities and increase the prices indiscriminately. Coupled with Electricity (Amendment) Bill, the new legislation would sound a death knell for the farming community.
