Farm laws may have limited effect on Kerala's existing trade systems, feel farmers

Being a state that has not implemented the Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee (APMC), farmers in Kerala feel that the opening up of trade with new farm laws might not make much impact in the existing trade systems in Kerala, even as there are serious concerns of entry of corporates.

While the existing government and private procuring systems may remain unaffected, the major concern is with regard to entry of corporates into the field. Producers of commodities like pineapple that are mainly sold through markets in other states hope that the new system would help them to explore new markets and there by fetch a better price.

With the absence of APMCs, the major channel of trade in Kerala is private agencies that procure from farmers and sell it in other states. Kerala government's agencies like state agriculture department's wholesale markets, Kerala State Horticultural Products Development Corporation (Horticrop) and Vegetable and Fruit Promotion Council Keralam are also procuring produce from farmers.

Lack of production in bulk quantities is one reason why there was not much demand for implementing APMC in Kerala. Fruits like Pineapple and Mango from Kerala are widely sold in other states.

Pineapple Growers Association of Keralam president Baby John said that 90 per cent of the pineapple produced in Kerala were sold out through APMCs in other states. There are lobbies in APMCs that fix low prices. Hence, flexibility in trading would obviously help the major producers explore fresh markets and demand more price. Steps like contract farming would help in venturing into more varieties of pineapple farming. At present 4.5 lakh tonnes of pineapple are in produced in Kerala.

Meanwhile, M Thajudeen, a leading mango farmer at Muthalamada in Palakkad district, said that it would be difficult for the farmers to bargain in a corporate dominated market. Hence it was better to have a government managed marketing strategy.

Most of the farmers as well as those associated with the industry feels that ensuring minimum support price could be the key to support the agriculture sector.

Jyothi Kumar, a lawyer and agriculture entrepreneur, said that major chuck of famers in Kerala were financially weak and hence they could be easily influenced by corporates. Hence it was better that the government takes steps to empower farmers as well as to promote joint farming initiatives. Concerns of contract farming leading to over exploitation of the farm lands and doing away with the present cultivation patterns sound to be quite genuine as maximising profit would be the priority of corporates, he said.

Former director of agriculture in Kerala R Hali said that the need of the hour was to constitute a committee of experts to see how Kerala could make use of the government schemes and laws for the betterment of the state agriculture sector.

Of a total geographical area of 38.86 lakh hectares of the state, the net area sown is 53 per cent.