November 19, 2021, marks a victory day not only for the protesting Indian farmers but also for the entire social movement advocating food sovereignty globally. PM Modi repealed the three farms laws that sparked agitation. Farmers, primarily from Haryana and Punjab, have been in the street since August 2020, protesting three farm laws passed by the central government through parliament. The Indian farmers’ protest has dominated global media, galvanizing broad-based and diverse advocacy groups worldwide. The three laws are a) The Farmers Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020, which aimed at allowing trade in agricultural produce outside the existing APMC (Agricultural Produce Market Committee) mandis; b) The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020, which aimed to provide a framework for contract farming; c) The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act, 2020, which aimed at removing commodities such as cereals, pulses, oilseeds, edible oils, onion, and potato from the list of essential commodities. The three laws aimed at deregulating food price control, liberalizing the control of food stocks and trade, and giving corporations more freedom to contract farming with smallholder farmers. The core discontent of the farmers is that new laws will together bypass state-regulated agricultural markets, remove limits on stockpiling of agricultural commodities, and deregulate minimum support prices. Farmers fear this will open India’s agriculture sector to corporate control, destroy the public food distribution system and small-scale food production, and devastate farm incomes. For more than a year, Indian farmers have been enduring biting cold, scorching heat, pouring rain, tear gases, and police batons in their fight for food sovereignty through national strikes, working alongside trade unions but also reaching out to gather wider support of India’s population. In a surprise move on Friday, Nov 19, PM Modi announced the repeal of the three laws. There may be socio-political undercurrents triggering the repeal but on the surface, it is relentless agitation that compelled the government to retreat from its stance. This blog intends to draw the lessons learned from the repeal and underscore its implications on the global food sovereignty agenda. It is not the intention here to enter into the genesis of farmer protest and take a position whether the laws are good or bad for the farmers in India. We will touch on the conceptual underpinnings of food sovereignty hoping it will help to view the protest from the food sovereignty spectrum.
Food Sovereignty: Conceptual Underpinnings
Food sovereignty is rooted in the ongoing global struggles over control of food, land, water, and livelihoods. There is no universal definition for food sovereignty, however, it is commonly understood that people who produce, distribute, and consume food also control the mechanisms and policies of food production and distribution against government or corporations defining policies and agendas. Declaration of Nyéléni, the first global forum on food sovereignty, Mali, 2007 defined food sovereignty as “the right of peoples to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their food and agriculture systems. It puts the aspirations and needs of those who produce, distribute and consume food at the heart of food systems and policies rather than the demands of markets and corporations.” It is adopted by 80 countries. Food sovereignty is a transnational social movement and advocacy network of peasants, farmers, fisherfolk, and other peoples dependent on agricultural production for their livelihoods. Originally it started in the Americas and Europe and expanded quickly to Asia, Africa, and other parts of the world as a social movement resisting the WTO’s Agreement on Agriculture and its imposition of multilateral disciplines on domestic agriculture policy.
The concept was first framed by the international peasant movement La Via Campesina at the World Food Summit in 1996. Food sovereignty respects the right of food providers to have control over their land, seeds, and water, and rejects the privatization of natural resources. La Via Campesina has laid out seven principles of food sovereignty as outlined below:
- Food: A Basic Human Right.
- Agrarian Reform.
- Protecting Natural Resources.
- Reorganizing Food Trade.
- Ending the Globalization of Hunger.
- Social Peace.
- Democratic control.
The thrust of the food sovereignty movement is that the control over the food system needs to remain in the hands of farmers, for whom farming is both a way of life and a means of producing food. As of now seven countries (Ecuador, Venezuela, Mali, Bolivia, Nepal, Senegal, Egypt) have enshrined food sovereignty in their constitution. But the implementation is yet to be seen.
Lessons learned
The three farm laws in India mirror a global trend in the food sector in which corporate interests are taking over food systems and exerting their influence on food and agriculture policies at all levels. In addition, the way the laws were enacted reflects the arrogance of governing elites that they have all the solutions to the problems farming communities are facing. This is grounded on the prevailing notion that farmers are only part of the problem not part of the solution. Those who formulate policies considered agriculture a trading commodity and, perhaps, did not realize there is a cultural element attached to agriculture that needs to be approached delicately. Farm laws were first introduced through ordinances and then passed through parliament in September 2020 without much debate, let alone having conversations with farmers, farmer unions, state government, and stakeholders. This sparked agitation and brewed mistrust between the government and farming communities. After almost 15 months long agitation PM Modi was compelled to bow down before the protestors confessing he “could not convince farmers despite good intentions behind the laws.” Prominent Indian economist Ashok Gulati opines that the government miserably failed to communicate the spirit of the laws to the farmers. Whatever the justifications for enactment or withdrawal of the laws, this will be recorded as a landmark event in the history of the farmer movement in the world. It has taught lessons not only for India but also it will have far-reaching ripple effects globally.
- Persistent opposition to the laws and eventual withdrawal sent a clear message that any future attempts to reform the rural agricultural economy would require a much wider consultation for better design of reforms and wider acceptance. No matter how strong the government is, it cannot impose reforms if genuine democratic process of consultation is not followed. This means government should know how to introduce reform measures, not only what to reform. This entails adopting a consultative, transparent, and better communicated reform process. This is what one of the principles of food sovereignty- democratic control of the food system, refers to.
- There is power in the collective voice of the weaker section of society, like smallholder farmers; however, it needs patience and persistence to be successful. This victorious protest has bolstered future food sovereignty movements in India and elsewhere.
Farmers’ victory in India lends credence to the food sovereignty movement. La Via Campesina has celebrated the victory by sending congratulatory messages to alliances and global civil society. The protest has shown that the collective voice of farmers can resist government intervention if thrust against their interests. It can be speculated that the democratization of the reform process would gain traction, and farmers would have a say in shaping their food systems.