West Bengal is the biggest producer of rice and vegetables in the country. It is the fourth largest producer of food grains among the states. These paved the way for better earnings for the Bengal farmers. According to Finance Minister Amit Mitra, farmers income in West Bengal trebled during seven years. He said “over the past seven years, the net income of per farmer family of West Bengal has increased more than three times, from Rs 91,000 in 2010-11 to Rs. 2,90,000 (excluding the cost of cultivation as per NSDP) in 2017-18.” It shows the rise of annual average income of a farmer family in West Bengal grew by around 219 percent in seven years at an average rate of 31 percent per annum. Asserting the growth, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said that Credit Cards tripled in eight years from 27 lakh in 2011 to 69 lakhs in 2019.

The protests against the new farm bills evoked limited on impact Bengal farmers. This is because one of the important allegation against farm bills is the fear of discontinuation of MSP (Minimum Support Price). Paradoxically, MSP is not the important remuneration for Bengal farmers. According to Prof. Arvind Panagarya, only 6 percent of the farmers in the country use the benefit of MSP. The larger concentration of MSP usages is in Punjab, according to him. Given these, Mamata might have used her initial delay tactics to insulate the Bengal farmers from engaging into the stir, which means waste of time and loss of farm income.

But there is a view that the farm bills will produce windfalls for the Bengal farmers. As the biggest producer of rice and vegetables, Bengal farmers will benefit blissfully from the borderless marketing rights. This will ultimately pave the way for corporatization of Bengal agriculture, which means larger private investment. This will open new opportunities for better warehousing facilities and marketing channels in pan-India for the Bengal agricultural products, which hitherto were restricted within Bengal boundary. Mamata might have failed to bring investment in industry, but the farm bills will open a new gate to attract investment in the agriculture sector in the State.

The strong foundation of agricultural development in West Bengal was set up at the end of seventies under Left Front regime. CPI(M) and its allies initiated a major agrarian and land reforms by launching Barga Operation in West Bengal. It enacted Bengal Land Revenue Act 1979 and the Revenue Rules 1980to provide legal protection to the small and marginal farmers from the clutches of rich farmers. Bargadar in Bengali means a sharecropper. Under the new law, even if the farmer, who tills the land but not the owner, has the right to share the crops produced along with the owner of the land. In other words, under the law , sharecroppers or the tillers are engaged in legal agreement with farmer -cum-landowner for sharing the proportion of crops. In many states, the agreements are verbal and there is no regulatory protection to the tillers and sharecroppers.

Sharecroppers or the tillers in West Bengal are registered under the new Act. They have three rights. First, the sharecroppers have perpetual rights to till the land. In other words, the sharecroppers and their descendants have the right to till the land forever. Second, the sharecroppers and their descendants cannot be evicted. Third, a landlord cannot sell the land without the consent of sharecroppers. In other words, the sharecroppers became the de-facto landowners, even though not on paper.

Barga operation created a long-term bondage between the landowners and cultivators. Given the new law empowering sharecroppers with equivalent power, the sharecroppers or the tillers became eligible for agricultural subsidies and soft-loan from the banks. In other states, sharecroppers are not eligible for subsidies and soft loan, since they were not registered farmers, unlike West Bengal

Empirical evidences show that this land reforms helped the end of stagnation in agricultural growth in West Bengal. During 1999-2000 to 2004-2005, West Bengal pitched higher growth in food grain production at 2.06 percent per annum, as compared to negative growth by 0.23 percent at all India level.

Mamata wants to follow her own model of agricultural development in Bengal and she is fashioning her strategy towards the farmers agitation against farm laws taking this perspective in mind. She is taking the risk of loosing corporate investment in agriculture in the state as a deliberate policy to confront the BJP politically. (IPA Service)