MoS Agriculture confident impasse over Farm Laws will end after next round of talks

Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmer Welfare Kailash Choudhary on Saturday expressed his confidence in the deliberations between the protesting farmers and the Centre while opining that the next round of talks would bring a solution and conclude the ongoing protests against the three farm laws.

"I am confident that in the next round of talks with farmers, a solution will be reached and the ongoing protest will come to an end. The Government of India had already agreed their demands of decriminalising stubble burning, the continuance of power subsidies and provisions of civil courts," Choudhary said while speaking with ANI.

Speaking on the protesting farm unions' continued demands of the complete withdrawal of the laws and legalisation of MSP, Choudhari said, "The three farm laws are in favour of farmers. There should be no confusion on MSP. The prime minister himself said many times that the provision of selling crops at MSP will continue. It was the long-standing demand from farmers to do away with the system of middlemen so they can sell their produce at a price of their choice."

Elaborating on how the farm laws are better with respect to the mechanism of contract farming vis-a-vis the laws of Punjab's, he said, "In the new law, there is no provision of penalty and fine to farmers regarding contract farming. Whereas, Punjab has its own contract farming law, which includes the provision of punishment."

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Consensus on two points

The government and the farm unions had reached some common ground on Wednesday to resolve the protesting farmers' concerns over rising in power tariff and penalties for stubble burning, but the two sides remained deadlocked over the main contentious issues of the repeal of three farm laws and a legal guarantee for MSP. The next round of deliberations between the protesting farmers and the government is slated for January 4.

Amid the continued agitation against the farm laws, several farmers organizations have come out in larger numbers to express their support to the farm laws. Recently, farmers in Meerut organised an outreach program to highlight the benefits of the three farm laws. Moreover, farmers have also held tractor rally in Gautam Budh Nagar. In December, a crowd of 20,000 farmers from Meerut came out in support of the three agrarian laws. Farmers organisations had even met Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar to express their support to the farm laws with certain amendments in place.

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