Farmers organisation launches new front for MSP law months after Centre repealed reforms - Raju Shetti also said a three-day farmers convention will be held in the capital to announce a nationwide agitation on the issue.
“We’re not going anywhere. We are ready to sit here for years if needed. The government has to listen,” said Balwinder Singh, 50, who normally grows rice and wheat on 3 acres of land in Punjab. He has been protesting since Nov. 26 on the Singhu border, the epicentre of the demonstrations outside Delhi. “We can survive the coronavirus but not these laws.”
Behind the protesters’ fears and the government rhetoric is a reality that the country somehow needs to reshape its agricultural system or face the environmental consequences of overproduction and a fiscal calamity from ballooning farm subsidies. Get the reform right and it could raise millions of agriculture-dependent families out of poverty and propel India to the forefront of global food exports. Get it wrong and it could force tens of millions of people off their land and degrade up to 90% of the nation’s water supply.