Kisan Mazdoor Commission (KMC): Agenda 2024 for Agriculture & Allied Sectors

At a Press Conference called by the Kisan Mazdoor Commission at Press Club of India, New Delhi,  the Agenda on Agriculture and Allied Sectors for 2024 was released by eminent journalist and founder of People’s Archive of Rural India (PARI) P Sainath, social activist Navsharan Kaur, General Secretary of All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) Comrade Vijoo Krishnan, President of AIKS Comrade Ashok Dhawale, Vice President Comrade Hannan Mollah, President of All India Kisan Khet Mazdoor Sanghatan (AIKKMS) Comrade Satyawan, General Secretary of All India Agricultural Workers’ Union (AIAWU) Comrade B Venkat and General Secretary of Bhartiya Khet Mazdoor Union (BKMU) Gulzar Singh Goria.

Please find enclosed the Executive Summary of the Agenda herewith.

Right to land, water and commons for all

1. Provide for equitable access to land and water: legislate for homesteads for the rural poor; grant land rights to landless for cultivation; promote kitchen gardens, backyard poultry, cattle sheds and group farming.
2. Place all above-ceiling land presently held by public or private entities under control of the state and union government for the redistribution to the landless: for example – the land held by CIDCOs, state industrial estates, or Railways and SOEs, and lands sliding into corporate control, acquired for SEZs, but failed to achieve the stated public purpose.
3. Create a register of tenants and provide smallholders with secure tenancy. Give tenant farmers statutory support, recognise tenants as beneficiaries of schemes announced for individual benefits, and access to benefits from sector wide schemes financed through public investment.
4. Recognize women as farmers and grant them land rights, secure their tenancy rights over leased lands.
5. Recognize land rights of Adivasi farmers, implement Forest Rights Act (FRA), review all rejections under FRA, and roll back pro-corporate amendments to Indian Forest Act, 1927.

Right to Food, Employment, Education, Health and Social Protection

1. Expand and provide for a universal public food distribution system for the delivery of cereals and nutri-cereals, pulses, sugar and oils without linking it to Aadhar or biometric identification and without shifting to direct cash transfer;
2. Stop the unbridled expansion of privatization of public services, ensure education and health through public sector, and universalise water and sanitation, healthcare and quality education for all.
3. Ensure job security and minimum wage by extending the number of workdays from 100 to 200 workdays in rural areas @ Rs. 800 wages per day, implement existing provision of 100 days of MGNREGA without creating digital hurdles,
4. Introduce a provision of 100 days of labour support for the SC, ST, and other small and marginal farmers for land development and for the adoption of integrated farming systems (IFS) including natural farming, thus 200 days of rural employment @ Rs. 800 wages per day.
5. Enact old age pensions;
6. Provide childcare and crèche facilities in agricultural workspaces.
7. Provide for separate courts for protection against caste, ethnic, religious, gender based oppression;
8. Introduce Urban Employment Guarantee Act, guarantee employment for graduates from rural households in near-by towns;

Right to public and bank finance, production inputs, knowledge and market  

15. Guarantee extra budgetary resources to states from the 15^th finance commission for raising the level of gross capital formation in agriculture as a percentage of GDP from the current level of 15.7% to 30%.
16. Guarantee primary producers freedom from debt by implementing complete (formal and informal) loan waiver, restore the right of primary producers to priority lending, stop co-lending to delink farmers from the high-cost economy in agriculture; reduce the risks faced from climate change in respect of pursuing agriculture & allied sector occupations;
17. Create a single-window loan facility for small holders to promote integrated farming, strengthen SHGs and Kudambashree-type of institutions to enable women farmers to access agriculture credit from public banking;
18. Guarantee remunerative prices for agricultural commodities establish an effective system of public procurement of all farm produce declared as essential produce/value added products by rural households through cooperatives for the promotion of sustainable rural livelihoods and for the creation of a universal public distribution system;
19. Guarantee access to publicly-regulated markets purchasing the primary produce at the minimum support price (MSP) not lower than C2 costs plus 50 % for the products declared as essential commodities for production by state legislatures. That should also be done with union government ensuring finance for public procurement and a price stabilization fund;
20. Take agriculture out of WTO, no more free trade agreements (FTAs), and no more patent like intellectual property rights (IPRs) on seeds;
21. Withdraw from the agreements signed by ICAR with Bayer, Amazon and other MNCs, guarantee research, advice, testing and extension through public sector undertakings, pave the way for national ownership and control of infrastructure required for agri-digitalization and agri-tech delivery;.
22. Reintroduce sectoral reservation through legislation for the products attracting AGMARK label to encourage value addition through cooperatives, micro and small businesses & PSUs in order to keep big business out of local markets;
23. Ensure agro-ecologically coupled integration of primary, secondary and tertiary industries, and restore state/district level planning by establishing statutory boards for scientific and equitable land use, area planning, market development, and promotion of value addition to co-products and by-products through group enterprises.
24. Separate Fisheries Ministry in Central and State Governments with the mandate to protect and promote sustainable fisheries and the livelihood of small-scale fish workers including fishers, fish farmers, fish vendors and other ancillary fish workers;
25. Establish a National Commission for Fisheries to look after policy implementation, inter-state disputes, protection and promotion of the rights and entitlements of small-scale fishing communities.
26. Create in every state “State Commissions for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare”;
27. Stop entry of private Dairy Corporate Companies and import of foreign dairy products that threaten existence of India’s Dairy Cooperatives;
28. Abandon plan to open the Indian market by permitting Free Trade on milk and milk based products;
29. Ensure remunerative price for milk and milk products;
30. Reopen cattle trade markets;
31. End stray cattle menace.
32. Provide public assistance for the rejuvenation of common property resources;
33. Grant the right to pool resources for value addition and formation of local collectives such as Kisan Mazdoor Cooperatives/group enterprises (KMCs).

****************************

An Initiative by

NATION FOR FARMERS

C/o INSAF

A124/6, 1^st Floor, Katwaria Sarai, New Delhi – 110016

Mobile Nos.: +91-96503-65397; +91-84482-43990; +91-99101-71808