Indian farmers protests : Sri Lankan Watch

 India, Sri Lanka’s neighbor, agriculture contributes 17–18% to the GDP ( Gross Domestic Production ) of India. Agriculture played and plays a significant role in India since ancient times. Most of the Indians, approx. 58 % depend on agriculture for their income and livelihood. Being the second-largest producer of wheat and rice in the world, the GVA or Gross Value Added by agriculture, forestry and fishing were Rs. 19.48lakh crore (  276.37 Billion USD ) by maintaining the 4% growth rate. The exports of essential agricultural commodities have increased by 43% during April-September in 2020. ( ( US$ 5.1 billion to US$ 7.3 billion  ).

When it comes to farmers, they are facing different and different problems due to Government policies and climate change happening around the world.

The most recent case is the farmers' protest over India's new laws on agriculture on 20th September 2020. The Indian government has passed three farm acts over the country's agriculture. 

They are ;

1. Farmers' Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act 
2. Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act : 
3. Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act: 

All the farm acts seem not to favor the farmers. Farmers believe that those acts will lead to the sale and market the agricultural produce without any regulation also it has enabled inter-state trade and electronic trading for agricultural produce.

The newly introduced law prohibits the collecting of market fees, cess, or levies for trading outside of APMC markets. This is believed to end the current adopted system of Indian farmers which is called the " Mandi System"[traditional agricultural market system in India ]. Farmers further emphasize that it may trap farmers within the corporates and breaks the relationship between middlemen and the farmers. The middlemen borrow loans, funds to the farmers when they are in need other than to connect the market with the farmers. As this system seems to exploit farmers and making profits by middlemen, farmers still want to continue the system because of the strong bond between farmers and middlemen.

Sri Lanka's contribution to GDP by agriculture is approximately 7%.  It is not as big as India, the apparel exports are the highest proportion of GDP contribution to Sri Lanka. The vegetable and fruit market is mostly centralized to the Dambulla market and paddy is regulated by the private sector mostly and the government. As it is a small economy of agriculture in Sri Lanka, huge rallies or opposition to policies of agriculture can not be expected. Sri Lankan farmers are literally isolated although there are farmer organizations.

Image by Sanjeev Rohilla from Pixabay 

There were no records of huge rallies or farmer protests in Sri Lanka. But some scattered protests over water and not just having a reasonable price for their harvest. The most common thing is to block the road for a while and protest. But it does no remain for days as in India. 

In the Sri Lankan context, SL  farmers need to be more organized to protect their dignity in the future. In Sri Lanka, there is a huge threat from private monopoly organizations rather than their own government.

( Updated 10th. Dec. 2020 )

Disclaimer: Do not use this as a reference to books or research articles. Most of the written are writers opinions and statistics are extracted from external websites.

Links  :

https://www.ibef.org/industry/agriculture-india.aspx

https://globalnews.ca/news/