The Indian government’s handling of agricultural reforms and farmer welfare since the massive farmers’ protests of 2020-21 reveals a stark contrast in priorities. While committees and policies facilitating corporate interests and digital agriculture initiatives have been established and funded swiftly, crucial promises related to Minimum Support Price (MSP) guarantees and farmer welfare remain pending or inadequately addressed. This discrepancy is fuelling continuing farmer discontent and indicates where the government’s priorities lie.
Since the repeal of the three contentious farm laws in late 2021, the government and its premier agricultural research body, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), have moved quickly to forge partnerships with multinational agribusiness corporations. The ICAR has signed multiple Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) with global giants such as Bayer, Amazon and Syngenta within a short span from 2023 to 2024.
For instance, the ICAR-Bayer MoU signed in September 2023 focuses on developing resource-efficient, climate-resilient crop solutions, crop protection, mechanisation and carbon credit markets. Bayer, which has a history stretching back to involvement in Nazi death camps and is known for rolling out highly profitable, highly toxic agrochemicals, is now positioned to provide agronomic advisory services and mechanisation ‘solutions’ to farmers through ICAR’s extensive network.
Similarly, the ICAR’s collaboration with Amazon Kisan aims to leverage Amazon’s supply chain and digital infrastructure to promote ‘scientific’ cultivation and ensure ‘high-quality’ produce reaches consumers via Amazon Fresh. The Syngenta Foundation India partnership, signed in July 2024, emphasises ‘capacity building’ and training on ‘climate-resilient’ agriculture and ‘precision farming’ technologies like drones and AI.
These partnerships are not simply about ‘modernising’ agriculture; they are about embedding corporate control at every node of the food system. What is being rolled out under the banners of ‘digital agriculture’ and ‘public-private partnership’ is, in reality, the systematic transfer of control over seeds, inputs, data and markets from farmers and public institutions to transnational corporations. The resulting food system will be tailored for profit extraction, not food security or farmer well-being.
Such MoUs, often signed without public scrutiny or democratic debate, represent a corporate power play that undermines both national sovereignty and the autonomy of smallholder farmers in particular. As the Mumbai-based Janata Weekly points out, the government’s willingness to fast-track these deals, while dragging its feet on MSP and procurement reforms, is a clear signal of where its allegiances lie.
The digitalisation of agriculture, under the guise of innovation, opens the door for data harvesting by global tech and agri-corporations, making farmers dependent on proprietary platforms and algorithms. This is, in effect, digital colonialism, where control over agricultural knowledge and decision-making shifts from the field to the corporate boardroom.
These rapid tie-ups with corporate interests are not incidental but deeply intertwined with the genesis of the farm laws themselves. Investigations and analyses reported by Newsclick reveal that the farm laws were largely crafted under the influence of corporate agribusiness interests, with significant involvement from the apex government think tank NITI Aayog.
According to Newsclick, the farm laws originated from a proposal by Sharad Marathe, a US-based businessman with close ties to the ruling BJP party but no background in agriculture. Marathe’s vision, which advocated leasing farmland to corporate agribusinesses and reducing farmers to cogs in a corporate-controlled system, was quickly embraced by NITI Aayog. The think tank set up a task force dominated by big corporate players like Adani Group, Patanjali, BigBasket, Mahindra and ITC while excluding farmer representatives and independent experts.
This task force operated with secrecy and speed, recommending sweeping deregulation measures such as the dilution of the Essential Commodities Act to lift stocking limits, facilitating corporate control over agricultural markets. The Adani Group, in particular, was a vocal proponent of these changes, which aligned closely with its business interests.
NITI Aayog’s philosophy, according to Janata Weekly, equated what is good for agribusiness profits with what is good for Indian agriculture, sidelining the concerns of small and marginal farmers. This corporate-centric approach shaped the farm laws and subsequent policies, including the rapid MoUs with Bayer, Amazon and Syngenta, which further embed corporate influence in agriculture.
The narrative that ‘what’s good for corporate agribusiness is good for agriculture’ is a dangerous fallacy. It reduces the farmer to a contract labourer, strips communities of control over their food systems and prioritises export-oriented, input-intensive farming over agroecology and food sovereignty.
By excluding independent scientists, farmer organisations and public-interest voices, NITI Aayog has enabled policy capture by corporate interests. The farm laws were the legislative embodiment of this capture, and their spirit lives on in ongoing policy and institutional reforms.
In stark contrast to the swift corporate collaborations, the government’s promise to set up a committee to address MSP and related farmer demands has seen significant delays and limited action. Although a committee on MSP was announced following the farm laws’ repeal, no substantive interim report or legal guarantee has emerged even years later.
Budgetary support for direct procurement schemes that ensure remunerative prices for farmers has been drastically cut or merged into broader schemes, diluting their effectiveness. There is a preference for relief payments over systemic reforms that would benefit farmers, as noted by Janata Weekly.
Even here, while public money is poured into corporate-led ‘innovation’ and digital infrastructure, the actual safety nets that protect farmers from market volatility are being systematically eroded. It is basically austerity for farmers and abundance for corporates, a hallmark of the neoliberal food regime, where public resources are redirected from social protection to subsidising private profit.
Repeal in name only
Although the government formally repealed the three farm laws in November 2021 following sustained protests, the core objectives of these laws are being pursued through alternative means, effectively implementing the same reforms by stealth.
New policies such as the National Policy Framework on Agricultural Marketing (NPFAM) and ongoing efforts to promote contract farming, digital platforms for agricultural marketing and deregulation of state mandi (market) systems closely mirror the deregulatory and corporatisation goals of the repealed laws (Agricultural Produce Market Committees (APMCs) are primarily state backed. These APMCs operate under state governments, as agricultural marketing is a state subject in India. Mandis, which are regulated markets within the APMC system, play a crucial role in the agricultural economy.)
We are seeing backdoor strategies to open up agriculture to corporate control without legislative scrutiny or public debate: advancing the farm laws’ agenda under a different name. The rollback of the farm laws was a tactical retreat, not a change of direction. The state continues to implement the core tenets of those laws. The result is policy by subterfuge, where the substance of corporate capture advances even as the symbols are withdrawn.
Janata Weekly’s analysis of the 2023-24 budget and agricultural policies points to a clear political economy rationale: the government prioritises reforms that open agriculture to corporate investment and market forces over those that protect small and marginal farmers’ incomes and livelihoods. The rapid initiation and funding of corporate-oriented committees and MoUs contrast sharply with the slow or symbolic handling of farmer demands.
This approach reflects a broader neoliberal agenda that views agriculture as a sector for market manipulation rather than social protection. It is part of a global trend. India’s food system is being restructured to fit the template of a neoliberal food regime, one that privileges corporate consolidation, global supply chains and the commodification of everything from seeds to data. The losers are small farmers, rural communities and ultimately, the country’s food security.
Despite the government’s repeal of the farm laws, the farmers’ agitation in India remains very much alive and active. Since February 2024, a renewed wave of protests has emerged, surpassing the previous 2020-21 agitation in duration and intensity, particularly in key agricultural states like Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh.
Farmers continue to demand a legal guarantee for MSP for all crops, comprehensive loan waivers and the rollback of new pro-corporate policies, such as the National Policy Framework on Agricultural Marketing (NPFAM). The Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) and other farmer unions have organised widespread protests, including road blockades, sit-ins and marches to district headquarters across India.
The government’s response has included detentions of hundreds of farmers, bulldozing of protest sites and arrests of key leaders, including those undertaking indefinite hunger strikes. Despite this crackdown, farmers remain resolute, continuing to organise nationwide protests and drawing support from civil society groups and opposition political parties.
Farmers have also prepared detailed data to counter government claims about the cost and feasibility of implementing MSP guarantees. They continue to seek dialogue with the government, but meaningful engagement has been limited.
The Indian government has employed internet crackdowns as a key tactic to suppress the farmers’ protests, both in the 2020-21 agitation and the renewed protests starting in 2024. According to Newsclick, authorities imposed temporary internet blackouts in protest-affected areas, such as seven districts in Haryana during 2024, aiming to disrupt communication among farmers and prevent the spread of information about the protests. Similar shutdowns were used during the 2020-21 protests, including suspending mobile internet services in key protest zones around Delhi.
There has also been a targeted removal of social media accounts: the government issued executive orders to platforms like X to take down accounts of journalists, farmers’ union leaders and supporters reporting on or backing the protests, limiting the movement’s online visibility and outreach.
Overall, internet shutdowns and social media censorship have been significant tools in the state’s efforts to curb the farmers’ agitation and limit both domestic and international awareness and support. This, in part, explains why the renewed farmers’ agitation in India has not garnered the same level of global support as the 2020-21 protest.
Moreover, as The Wire notes, the 2020-21 protests centred around the three farm laws, providing a clear rallying point that attracted global attention and solidarity. The current protests focus on broader and more complex demands such as legal guarantees for MSP, repeal of new policies perceived as similar to the withdrawn laws, pensions, debt waivers and opposition to WTO agreements. This diffusion of focus may dilute international engagement.
Meanwhile, the government accelerates digital and corporate-friendly reforms with enthusiasm. The promised MSP committee and related guarantees remain pending, exposing a gap between political rhetoric and action. And that gap persists because the aim is to make agriculture financially non-viable for smallholders, who make up the bulk of India’s farmers, drive them to the cities and amalgamate their lands for the benefit of global agribusiness, industrialised agriculture and institutional land investors.
The repeal of the farm laws has not ended the push for corporatisation; rather, the government continues to advance these aims through new policies and partnerships. Until core farmer demands, especially legal MSP guarantees and income security, are addressed, the agitation and mistrust are likely to persist, reflecting the crisis at the heart of Indian agriculture. This crisis, for farmers, stems from the ongoing corporate takeover of the sector that ultimately hinges on removing them from the land.
Unless India reclaims its food system for the public good, anchored in food sovereignty, agroecology and farmer rights, corporate capture will only deepen. The struggle of India’s farmers is not just for their own survival, but for the very future of food, democracy and sovereignty in the country.
C. CST Research
