Since November 2020, hundreds of thousands of Indian farmers have been protesting against the introduction of a series of agricultural laws, which would also affect cotton farmers. Together, the changes would loosen rules around the sale, pricing and storage of farm produce - rules that have protected India’s farmers from unreasonable low prices for decades.

The new farm laws are intended to help small farmers who do not have the means to bargain or invest in technology to produce at a better economies of scale. One of the laws, the Act on Agri, allows farmers to sell their produce outside of agricultural produce market committee markets (‘mandis’) to whoever they wish. Similarly, anyone can buy the farmers’ produce. Through this law, farmers are expected to receive better prices through competition and lower transportation costs.

The second law on contract farming will allow farmers to directly enter contracts with large businesses and retailers on pre-agreed prices. Finally, the third law seeks to remove commodities like cereals, pulses, oilseeds, edible oils, onion, potatoes and cotton from the list of essential commodities, allowing the private sector and foreign direct investment into the agriculture sector.

Despite the positive outlook from the government, farmers fear that with the introduction of these laws, the current system of Minimum Support Price (MSP) would be dismantled as it has provided a guaranteed price to farmers’ crops for decades. They worry that without guaranteed prices, competitiveness would drive the prices so low that they will be forced to sell their land and lose their livelihoods.

Protests by Indian farmers have kept going on until late January 2021 with an alarming rate of crackdown on protesters, farming leaders and journalists by the Indian government, which includes shutting down the Internet. Although the Supreme Court has ordered to temporarily suspend the laws in early January 2021, the protesters are still demanding for the new laws to be repealed. More than half of the country’s 1.37 billion population relies on agriculture for living.

India is one of the world’s largest textile producers. Specifically, the country accounts for almost a third of worldwide cotton production. With the constant pressure to keep prices down from retailers, worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic, workers across the textile supply chain struggle to make ends meet.

With cotton being one of the most used raw materials for textile, this disruption greatly concerns the fashion industry and could taint the reputation of brands advocating for a sustainable supply chain. Yet, no large fashion corporation has issued any statement in support of India’s farmers.

In another development, India imposed a 10% duty on cotton imports starting 1 February 2021 in an effort to support cotton farmers.