Despite Ravi Shankar Prasad’s claims, farm laws had no role in farmer’s cauliflower sale
On 16 December, almost three weeks into the farmers’ protests at Delhi’s borders, the union law minister Ravi Shankar Prasad praised the contested farm laws by citing the case of a farmer in Bihar. Prasad tweeted that Om Prakash Yadav, a vegetable farmer from Muktapur panchayat in Bihar’s Samastipur district, sold his cauliflower harvest to a firm in Delhi, at ten times the local rate through an online platform. “Now the new agricultural laws of the Narendra Modi government have given the farmer the freedom to sell his crop anywhere,” read the tweet. But a close look at the transaction indicates that the sale was facilitated only by the cabinet minister’s personal intervention, and the new agricultural laws had no role to play in the entire process. A few other farmers from the same village told me that they had no such luck when they tried to utilise the same online platform, known as Agri10x, an agri-tech firm. Agri10x has existing linkages with the central government that predate the farm laws.
The incident first began on 14 December, when Om Prakash recorded a video in which he can be seen running a tractor through his field of cauliflowers. The 34-year-old farmer owns 4.5 bighas of cultivable land and had taken 9 acres on lease—one acre is approximately equal to 1.6 bighas in Bihar. He told me that for this season, he had cultivated cauliflower on 6.5 bighas. But when the vegetable was ready, the market price of cauliflower crashed. “Traders in the bazaar samiti”—local market-committee—“were not willing to take cauliflower even for Rs 1 per kilogram,” he said. Notably, Bihar had deregulated the agrarian sector and removed the state government’s oversight in 2006—the recently enacted farm laws share a similar framework. He told me that he cannot even recover his material input costs, let alone the labour costs at that rate. Frustrated with the situation, Om Prakash decided to destroy his harvest rather than sell it.
The video was shared widely and was soon picked up by news channels and digital sites. In the midst of the ongoing agitation against the farm laws, the news came as an embarrassment to the Bharatiya Janata Party-led central government, which is also a part of the ruling alliance in Bihar. The BJP government and its various ministers have consistently held that the new legislation is in the interests of the farmers and the ongoing farmers’ protests are misplaced. Some ministers, BJP functionaries and certain mainstream channels have also suggested that the agitation is a front for hidden agendas ranging from the separatist Khalistan movement, to China, Pakistan, and the Maoists, among others. In fact, on 11 December, Prasad claimed that the farmers’ protests had been taken over by the “tukde-tukde gang”—the term translates to pieces-pieces gang and is a pejorative coined by the BJP which refers to an imaginary gang that aims to break apart the nation—and there was a “sinister design” to the agitation.
However, as the video went viral across social-media platforms, Prasad seems to have switched to damage-control mode. Om Prakash told me, “On 15 December, I got a call from the personal assistant of Ravi Shankar Babu. He asked me if I had destroyed my cauliflower. I told him, ‘yes.’” He said that the assistant asked him why he destroyed his harvest. “I said that the price of cauliflower in the market has fallen to Rs 1 to 2 per kg. If the transport cost and the cost of harvesting the cauliflower and filling it in the sack is not recovered, there is no logic of selling the vegetable at that price.” He added, “The PA asked how much cauliflower was destroyed. I said that the cauliflower in 4.5 bighas had been destroyed and there is still two bighas left.”
Om Prakash said that Prasad’s assistant assured him that the remaining cauliflower would be sold to Agri10x through the local Common Service Centre. The CSCs are access points for delivery of essential public-utility services, social-welfare schemes, health care, financial, education and agricultural services. They were first launched in 2009 and then revamped in 2015 under the central government’s “Digital India” programme. Currently, every gram panchayat in Bihar has CSC facilities where farmers can register themselves. Om Prakash said that soon after the assistant’s call, he got a call from representatives of the CSC, and Agri10x. “I was then taken to the CSC and made to register online,” Om Prakash told me. Vikram Sharma, the district manager of the CSC in Samastipur, told me, “The role of Ravi Shankar Prasad is that when the news became viral, it was he who took cognizance and directed the CSC to solve his problem by registering him.”
Om Prakash said that after registering at the CSC, Agri10x contacted him and “the very next day, on 16 December, four tonnes of cauliflower was bought at the rate of Rs 10 a kg.” Notably, according to Om Prakash, Agri10x did not quote him a price but asked the farmer what price he would like to sell his produce at. He told me that Prasad then talked to him via a video call and asked “if my product was sold or not.” Soon after that call, Prasad tweeted about the success of the “the new agricultural laws.” Several media houses picked up Prasad’s tweet and reported about it. For instance, the Hindi daily Navbharat Times ran a report with the headline “Kaudee ke bhaav bik rahee thee gobi, naye krishi kaanoon ka asar, 10 guna adhik mila daam”—Cauliflower was selling for pennies, farmer gets 10 times the price due to new agricultural law. Prasad’s tweet was picked up by several BJP functionaries, such as the party’s Delhi spokesperson Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga, who tweeted, “The man who had grown the cauliflower crop in Samastipur got the right price, Ravi Shankarji said that this is the benefit of the new agricultural law.”
Om Prakash told me that when he first spoke to Agri10x, he had been assured that his entire crop remaining on two bighas—approximately nine tonnes—would be purchased. However, after the first transaction of four tonnes on 16 December, Agri10x did not contact him again for the remaining produce. He said that he waited two days and was forced to again take the decision to destroy the remaining crop. As local media reported about it, the next day, on 19 December, Agri10x reached out to Om Prakash again and purchased the remaining five tonnes of cauliflower. When I first spoke to Amulya Agarwal, the vice-president-sales of Agri10x, on 20 December, he asked me to call him back the next day. Agarwal refused to respond to calls after that.
According to Agri10x’s website, the company is the “world’s first Artificial Intelligence & Blockchain enabled global e-marketplace connecting farmers with traders.” It describes itself as the “fastest growing agritech company worldwide with extensive data bank.Agri10x offers 360 degree agricultural solutions, ranging from pre-harvest to post-harvest.” The site says that the firm was formed in February 2017 and the agri-trading platform was launched in 2019. The company calls itself the “Alibaba of Agriculture,” a reference to the Chinese e-commerce giant. Notably, Pankajj P Ghode, the founder of Agri10x, has been effusive with his praise for Modi and has tweeted his admiration for the prime minister several times.
In February 2020, Agri10x partnered with the central government. According to a Business Standard report published on 12 May, the partnership gives Agri10x “exclusive access” to “5 lakh common service centres across India, through which village-level entrepreneurs (VLEs) would help farmers register on the Agri10x platform and help them sell their produce directly.” In fact, sales via Agri10x were already in the news even before the new laws were brought in. For instance, in June, the Hindi daily Dainik Bhaskar reported that a farmer from Muzaffarpur had exported litchis to London through Agri10x. Prasad had tweeted about this sale, too, on 9 June. “To help farmers sell their produce during #COVID19 CSC has started a pilot on digital platform to connect farmers, buyers & logistics service providers, developed by a startup @agri10x.”
In addition, while Agri10x has a tie-up with the CSCs, it is not the only option available to farmers if they want to sell their produce in other states. There are other players in the sector, such as Agribazaar, a private online agri-market portal launched in 2016, and the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India, or NAFED’s e-portal, via which farmers can sell their products in any state. The inter-state sale of farm produce was possible even before the new laws were enacted and the recent legislation has played no role in Om Prakash’s sale. It is unclear why Prasad credited the new agri-laws with the sale; an email questionnaire sent to the minister was unanswered at the time of publishing.
Further, Om Prakash’s cauliflowers were sold so quickly because Prasad himself intervened. But other farmers in the same village have not been able to find buyers. Several of them told me that they are still suffering losses due to crashing vegetable prices and that despite online registration, there is no one to buy their vegetables. Raj Kumar Rai, a 42-year-old farmer, had cultivated cauliflower on three acres. When I spoke to him on 20 December, he told me, “I got registered at the Common Service Centre on 17 December, but have not yet found a buyer.” He said that “the market committee, which is some distance away from my house, was buying Rs 2 to- 3 per kg of cauliflower. Om Prakash’s cauliflowers were sold very quickly so I too got myself registered to CSC, but I am not getting buyers. So far, my three tonnes cauliflowers have been spoiled, causing a loss of Rs 45,000 to 50,000. ”
Dilip Rai, a 60-year-old farmer, had registered with the CSC some time ago. He had planted brinjal this season and has not found a buyer still. “I had planted brinjal saplings in 10 kattha in February this year,” he said. In Bihar, 32 katthas is equivalent to one acre. “Earlier, rate was good but now price has collapsed,” he continued. “The market committee was earlier buying brinjal at Rs 2 to 3 per kg, so I destroyed the plants which were planted in February. I had planted brinjal saplings in an additional 10 kattha in November and hoped to get buyer online but I have not yet got buyer. So, I am forced to sell in the market committee at Rs 5 to 6 per kg. Though selling at Rs 5 to- 6 per kg would not give any profit but I am a farmer, I have no option other than selling at whatever price market gives or destroy it.” Dilip demanded that the government must prepare a mechanism where farmers are ensured minimum support price from the government if the market price of vegetables collapses.
Surendra Rai, a 70-year-old farmer from Om Prakash’s village, also destroyed his brinjal crop, which he had planted in two kattha. Surendra’s reason was the same; the price was too low to be worth the effort of harvesting and taking to the market. He told me, “Once a plant is sown, it will give brinjal for six months but I destroyed it in just one month after sowing.”
Om Prakash told me that if the video of him destroying his crop had not gone viral, his crop would not have been sold. He was also unhappy with the price at which he sold the cauliflower despite it being higher than the offer by the local market committee. “Only the cost incurred could come out and that too only for the cauliflower that were grown in two bighas.” He explained, “From sowing a sapling till the cauliflower is ready, it costs Rs 10 to 12 and a cauliflower weighs on an average one kg. When there was talk of buying cauliflower, the representatives of the company asked me at what price the cauliflower would sell, so I thought only to recover production cost and told them that it would be better if I got Rs 10 per kg. But at this rate I did not get any benefit from the sale.” He said that he suffered loss of Rs 4 lakh as he had earlier destroyed cauliflower sown over the 4.5 bighas. “I have taken a loan of Rs 3 lakh through the Kisan Credit Card. I do not know how to repay this loan,” he told me.
Om Prakash said that the medium through which his vegetable was sold is not the usual method. “The government should ensure that every farmer harvest is sold at a profitable price without any minister’s intervention,” he said. “If the price of farmers’ vegetables crashes in the market, then the government should make arrangements to buy it from the farmers, only then the farmers will be benefited, otherwise we will continue to suffer.”