Standardised Foods and Compromised Consumers: Can the Repeal of the Three Farm Laws Turn the Clock Back?

Abstract

This article argues that the repeal of the farm laws and even meeting the demand of the protestors to reduce corporatisation of agriculture and enhance the role of the state through expansion of guaranteed procurement is unlikely to bring significant positive transformation for farmers or consumers. Indian agriculture was remade through an industrial logic by harnessing science and technology, not by corporations but by the might of the state in the 1960s during the Green Revolution. Beyond its well-known negative environmental and livelihood impacts, I show how this logic also transformed diets and damaged the health of people. Challenging the tropes of food security, modernisation, efficiency and quality that have been used to justify the perpetuation of this logic, I argue that only by tracing the relationships that have led to the present, can we begin to unravel them and reimagine a healthier and more sustainable agrarian future.