Govt's 6th round of talks with farmer leaders scheduled for Wednesday

The government's sixth round of talks with representatives of farmers protesting at Delhi's borders against three new farm laws is scheduled to be held on Wednesday, a day after Union Home Minister Amit Shah held a meeting with select farmmer leaders in a bid to break the deadlock.

Three union ministers -- Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar, Food Minister Piyush Goyal and Minister of State for Commerce and Industries Som Prakash -- will hold discussions again with 40 farmer unions' leaders, including the Bharatiya Kisan Union which is spearheading the protests.

The sixth round of meeting comes a day after a 'Bharat Bandh' was observed by the protesting farmer unions, which received support from trade unions, various other organisations as well as 24 opposition parties, including the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party.

No breakthrough has been possible in the five rounds of talks so far as the protesting farmers have stuck to their demand for the repeal of the laws despite the government's assurance to look into specific issues without abolishing the legislations.

In the previous meeting on December 5, Tomar had assured 40 farmer union leaders that the government is open to considering ways to strengthen APMC mandis, create a level-playing field with proposed private markets, and provide a provision for approaching higher courts for dispute resolution, while asserting that procurement at minimum support price will continue.

But the protesting farmer unions' leaders are insisting that the laws must be scrapped.

Meanwhile on December 7, a group of 20 progressive farmers from Haryana submitted to the government a memorandum demanding that the government consider amendments as suggested by the protesting farmers unions but not repeal them.

Tomar had told these progressive farmers backing these legislations that these measures will benefit the peasantry and the agriculture sector and that the government will handle such agitations.

The three farm laws have been presented by the government as major reforms in the agriculture sector that will remove the middlemen and allow farmers to sell anywhere in the country. However, the protesting farmers have expressed apprehension that the new laws would pave the way for eliminating the safety cushion of MSP and scrap the mandis, leaving them at the mercy of big corporates.

The Centre has maintained the MSP and mandi systems would continue and would be rather further improved and strengthened.

The first round of talks had taken place in October, but the farmer leaders had walked out from that meeting as no minister was present. This was followed by the second round on November 13. The last three rounds have taken place after thousands of farmers, first from Punjab and Haryana and later from other states as well, laid siege to various borders of the national capital.