The New Farmer’s Movements began in India in the 1970s in Punjab and Tamil Nadu, when farmers of the green revolution area began to rally around political parties and leaders. These movements included farmers rather than peasants, as farmers were said to be market-involved as both commodity producers and purchasers. Like other ‘new’ non-class or supra-class social movements, which emerged outside the formal political party structures, examples being environmental and women’s movements, these farmer’s movements were considered as ‘New’ on the following grounds:

• They did not believe in romanticising their lifestyle or social life.
• They refused to divide the social categories on the basis of the economic position of farmers. For them, all farmers were poor.
• The farmers’ movement believed in the single point agenda of analysing the backwardness from the perspective of remunerative prices. They believed that the remunerative prices to the agricultural commodities, if given, will have a filter-down effect. It would remove the rural poverty and backwardness.
• Unlike the traditional movements, these movements believed and argued that the exploitation was rooted in the larger market system and biased government policies.
• These movements believed in the principle of going beyond locality. For instance, the Maharashtra movement led by Sharad Joshi supported Liberalisation, while the farmer organisations in Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab vehemently opposed globalisation.
• Novel methods of agitation were used such as blocking of roads and railways, refusing politicians and bureaucrats entry to villages, and so on.

Some prominent New Farmer’s Movements include:

• The Karnataka Farmers’ movements under Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha (KRRS): They are fighting against multinationals that try to sell seeds e.g., Monsanto Company. They argue that such companies are pursuing neo-colonisation by way of cheap goods, dumping secretive technology, imposing restrictions on the indigenous production, etc.
• The Maharashtra Farmers’ movements under Shetkari Sangathan: They bring forward ‘Bharat versus India’ debate and highlight the urban bias in policies. They believe that agricultural prices are artificially deflated to provide cheap food and raw materials to urban areas. They ask for open and competitive markets.
• The Punjab and Uttar Pradesh Farmers’ movements under Bharat Kisan Union (BKU): It attained popularity in the 1980s under Mahendra Singh Tikait. Their demands revolved around implementation of measures such as control over prices of sugarcane, loan waivers to farmers and lowering of water and power tariffs.

Though the New Farmer’s Movements have been able to draw the attention of policymakers towards the deep-rooted agricultural distress, they have not been effective in bringing radical transformation in the countryside due to the fact that the movements suffer from internal conflicts and are identified with rich or market-oriented farmers.