Webinar: Indian farmers protest: Meaning, response and wider significance
Thursday 11 February 2021 from 13:00–14:00 (CAT)
PLAAS invites you to a webinar on “Indian farmers protest: Meaning, response and wider significance” featuring:
- Shirin (Co-founder, Peace Vigil)
- Dr. Vikram Singh (Joint Secretary, All India Agricultural Workers Union)
- Dr. Siddharth K. Joshi (Independent Researcher, Bengaluru)
The webinar will be chaired by Dr Boaventura Monjane, postdoctoral candidate at PLAAS. Dr. Monjane wrote his PhD on agrarian social movements in South Africa, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe.
Farmers in India are protesting in the streets over agricultural reforms proposed by the Indian government, which will see the government play a minimal role in agriculture and open space for private investors. For over the years, India’s farmers have been protected from an unfettered free market, however, this is about to come to an end if the government gets its way. The government intends to remove guaranteed support prices that have been in place for certain essential crops, subsidised storage and transport, and allow an unfettered free market. This move has been heavily criticised by farmers who fear that this may lead to loss of income, land, and their businesses, which will spell disaster for Indians as more than half of them depend on agriculture for livelihoods.
This webinar will engage the questions below:
- What triggered the move by the farmers?
- What is the rationale behind the government’s action? Whose interest does it serve?
- What does this mean for the country’s food security, livelihoods, and food sovereignty?
Tune in on Thursday 11 February 2021 from:
- 11:00 – 12:00 Greenwich Mean Time (GMT)
- 13:00 – 14:00 Central Africa Time (CAT)
- 16:30 – 17:30 India Standard Time (IST)
Watch the webinar here: https://youtu.be/gCWfmGj6vQ4 Or click below to view it.