Land Reforms in India

[editorialteam]

Dear Readers,

What are your thoughts about land reforms in India? Should we relax land ceiling laws and allow corporate and large farmers to own more lands?

Regards,
Shweta - Editorial Team

 

[editorialteam]

Agricultural land should have a ceiling mainly because people want to use it only for land speculation and trading. If companies are allowed to buy they will buy large amounts. There has to be very stong monitoring over their practicess and intent which is very difficult in India. At the same time, land parcels are very small now, making mechanization difficult, So we are stuck in a catch-22 situation. But this is good for the country right now. It should stay as is. It is obviously better for me if land cieling is removed but we must think of the poor farmers who may be forced to give up land if companies start grabbing it.

Says -
Mr. Rohit Sanghavi
Esteem Agro & Foods Pvt Ltd or EAFPL

 

[editorialteam]

Yes. There should be a clear focus on corporate or co-operative faring. The ownership remains with the farmers but the activities are carried on by these organizations. The current land ceiling policies help the urban people, making them richer as they do not have any ceiling, while the rural farmers are at a loss as they are bound by the ceiling rules. These rules help a few individuals to amass wealth but the villagers suffer by these regulations even though they are the main suppliers of most of the essential products.

As told by-
Mr. G Raviprasad, MD
Coromandel Fertilizers/Coromandel International Ltd

 

[editorialteam]

Just stop agri land from being converted into other forms indiscriminately and put a tax on all people who own agri land and are leaving it fallow. This has to be done ASAP. So many greedy people from the city buy huge agri lands and then don’t cultivate. They keep it for “investment”. What nonsense is this? This has to be stopped first. You can then waste your time debating about land reforms.

Replied by-
Mr. Harihara Sudhan, Business Head
Perikali Trading Company

 

[rsrs_in]

Land regulations in India should not distinguish between types of land i.e. agricultura, residential, NA, industrial etc., it does not make much sense and helps the under hand dealings and buearocracy. Few of the pointers to be considered - of course there will be counter arguements & better points.

- Land should be purchaseable by anyone who is a Indian citizen - need not be a farmer, agriculturist etc
- Depending on the specific zones, permissions (single-window) can be provided for construction and size and scale of construction
- The above permission process will be a gate-keeper to ensure that greenery, agriculturability of land ratio is maintained in each zone - permit only as much as required
- Land purchase, registration, transfers etc., should be electronically tracked and monitored and should be transparent to all through govt websites. Some states partly have this and the updates take years to be done in some cases.
- Agricultural subsidies should be stopped and all inputs for agriculture should be provided at specific private chains, which need to be monitored by central agency
- Seeds, saplings and basic fertilizers should be provided free of cost to all indulging in farming
- Privatises outlets, again monitored by central agency should be appointed across the country to publish daily rates for purchase of various basic grains, vegetables etc. If this rate is competitive then farmers will sell to them or go to market direct. This will remove lack of transparency, under hand dealings, price cutting, middle men etc
- The above is working in milk industry with private players like HLL, Nestle, etc., buying in bulk from farmers their produce
- Remove the process of talathis, clerks, etc., in land transfer process- they take the most money and do no work - keep it simple like registering a flat in the city

 

[texpert]

Yes, Sir. There must be strict law to save the agri lands, even though the so called laws we have are not properly implemented. With out agri our country is totally dependable on the imports.

Investment purpose agri land which is kept idle for more than 6 months has to be heavily fined/taxed.

Jawahar.P
TEXPERT.

 

[editorialteam]

Mr. Ananthamurthy Javali, Proprietor, Ankur Nursery says,

There should be sealing on land-holdings; otherwise the gap between haves and have-nots will ever increase.

There is great pressure on the forests of Karnataka because trees are not cultivated on the private lands. There is already drought in Karnataka which is going to aggravate. The main rivers have dried up. There will be no electricity and no water to drink. The few thousand trees, I have grown may not bring good changes, but there will be floods of assurances delivered by our elected politicians.

 

[cyborg_jp]

Removing land ceiling will hurt small and marginal farmers

Dear Readers,

What are your thoughts about land reforms in India? Should we relax land ceiling laws and allow corporate and large farmers to own more lands?

Regards,
Shweta - Editorial Team

As per a survey in India, small and marginal farmers constitute 83% with average land holding below 5 acres per farmer. If we remove ceiling of rural lands then lands will be procured by few rich farmers or private firms. The rich politicians/businessmen will start procuring land of small and marginal farmers one by one till a sizeable say 100 to 1000 acres and will fence it and put it aside for future use. This will be used like a swiss-bank for parking black money and later will be converted to white money by showing agriculture income or re-sold to corporate/real estate companies.
Ultimately the small farmers will be at a loss as they will never be able to buy-back the land they sold due to sudden surge in land value around them.
Instead government should lease out freely large tracts of barren land to corporate farming companies with a condition to grow only those crops which are being imported e.g. vegetable oils, pulses, cashew nuts, fruits and nuts, spices, sugarcane etc. They should be free to export it after all our domestic demand has been met i.e. zero imports for that particular product.
This will resolve all kinds of problems both to farmers and the widening country's trade deficit.

-JP

 

[editorialteam]

Mr. Preetendra Singh, Owner/Entrepreneur, Monsoon Harvest Farms says,

Will it really make a difference? I don’t think any corporate would like to get into large scale farming. And in any case, on an individual front, there are so many loop holes to own as much land as one wants.

 

[editorialteam]

Mr. Aashish K Jha, CEO, Pristine Mega Food Park says -

No, do not allow corporates that will defeat the purpose of Land Reforms altogether and will lead to the eviction of marginal farmers altogether at the hands of the more able ones. Land ceiling laws should be relaxed in terms of policies to facilitate development of industry the best way to do so is by the Govt. itself acquiring land and leasing out to Industrialists / Entrepreneurs / Farmers alike.

 

[editorialteam]

Mr. Aashish K Jha, CEO, Pristine Mega Food Park says -

No, do not allow corporates that will defeat the purpose of Land Reforms altogether and will lead to the eviction of marginal farmers altogether at the hands of the more able ones. Land ceiling laws should be relaxed in terms of policies to facilitate development of industry the best way to do so is by the Govt. itself acquiring land and leasing out to Industrialists / Entrepreneurs / Farmers alike.

 

[editorialteam]

Mr. Dipak Medhi, Advisor, Lemon Growers Society says -

Corporate sector entry is welcome as agriculture needs huge capital but laws should be such so that our small farmers are not exploited.

 

[editorialteam]

Mr. Dipak Medhi, Advisor, Lemon Growers Society says -

Corporate sector entry is welcome as agriculture needs huge capital but laws should be such so that our small farmers are not exploited.

 

[editorialteam]

Mr. Harikrishna Murthy Vadiappan, Depot Manager/Joint manager, Karnataka State Beverages Corporation Limited says -

Land reforms differ from state to state. In Karnataka only farmers can buy farm/land but non farmers are allowed to buy only plantations like coffee tea rubber. Our neighbor Tamil Nadu has no land ceiling law and anybody can buy any type of land. There is nothing wrong in allowing corporate & large farmers to own farm lands provided they will not keep the land uncultivated. Minimum one crop has to be cultivated in a year.

 

[editorialteam]

Mr. Raja Kumaran, Head, Sales and Business Development - Realtech Systems says -

No, farmers are ready to work, and we want to teach them.

 

[editorialteam]

Mr. Ranganath Krishnan, Farmer and CEO - Goldensands Agrotech India Pvt Ltd says :

Most of my time is spent on how we can overcome some of the old reforms which have no relevance in the current era. As we speak, we are still yet to complete our land acquisition work and trust me! This is the most daunting work currently in progress. Reforms are needed and government needs to regulate the land. However if the land ceiling is taken off, simpler laws are brought about on corporate farming, there will be huge rush for agriculture. Many corporates will take up agriculture and India will be a better place. I hope something drastic happens in this area for the betterment of Indian economy.

 

[editorialteam]

Srinath Setty, Director, Marketing and Sales, Hosachiguru Farms says -


With the explosion in population growth, the next big sector is going to Agri sector. Unfortunately in our country average land holding per farmer is miniscule. This is not good for agriculture as an Industry as Land is the most important input for any kind of agriculture.

It will be better if the government relaxes land ceiling and also allow corporate and large farmers to own more lands.

In the US, a farmer credit card has a limit of $ 1.0 million enabling him to buy large equipment or processing units supporting his own produce. With India’s vast and rich natural resources, we aspire and hope that one day Indian farmers will also be able to scale up as western farmers.

 

[editorialteam]

Mr. Anantharaman, Mumbai based agri consultant says -

May be the land reforms are good. But this has not produced much results. The corporates can be allowed with riders. The relaxation can work wonders. This has pros and cons. But my sincere belief is that pamara makkal (farmers) from the remotest villages should be helped regularly, educated properly to take innovative steps for betterment. Many corporates had started and some have gained and many have failed. So let us take proper analysis of the facts to work for better. I will come back with lots of ideas and innovations in this blog to help them.

 

[editorialteam]

Mr. Vijayaraghavan, Founder, Lawrencedale Agroprocessing India Pvt Ltd. (LEAF) says -

In my opinion any kind of land reforms meant to increase the cultivation area will not help in increasing the agricultural production since we can’t predict that land owned and meant for agriculture will be used for farming or any other proposes on a later date. It will be unfair to tell & dictate the land owners what to do in their property. The only way out is make agriculture a profitable business, to make it profitable we need to create enough business based on post-harvest management and supply chain services to manage the entire agricultural production of the country. Over 85% of our farmers are small and medium and they are feeding our ever growing population, reforms should not jeopardize their sprit. I think the focus should be more on the agricultural production & the post-harvest management rather than the issue of land ownership.

 

[editorialteam]

Mr. Anil Patil, Chief Consultant and Horticulturist says -

We have reached a helpless position in India with fragmentation and unviable size farming/land holding. To bring in more investment corporate logics are a must. But due to political compulsions and to capture vote bank our govt are not ready to accept corporate agriculture as a developmental strategy. The alibi given is farmers will lose land and job which is not true. Able governance is any way required. The farmers can still be shareholders, directors, and partners and can have a controlling stake and voting rights. Suitable legal frame work should be put in place.