NEW DELHI:As an army of resolute Indian farmers keeps up its blockade of New Delhi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi faces potentially the trickiest challenge yet to his authority and reform agenda.<br /> <br /> With the protests entering their third week, AFP looks at the background to new farm laws, why they are sparking such opposition and Modi's limited options.<br /> <br /> <strong>What is the state of Indian agriculture?</strong><br /> <br /> India's farming sector is vast and troubled.<br /> <br /> It provides a livelihood to nearly 70 percent of the country's 1.3 billion people and accounts for around 15 percent of the $2.7-trillion economy.<br /> <br /> The "Green Revolution" of the 1970s turned India from a country facing regular food shortages into one with a surplus -- and a major exporter.<br /> <br /> But for the past few decades, farm incomes have remained largely stagnant and the sector is in sore need of investment and modernisation.<br /> <br /> More than 85 percent of farmers have less than two hectares (five acres) of land. Fewer than one in a hundred farmers own over 10 hectares, according to a 2015-16 agriculture ministry survey.<br /> <br /> India hands out an estimated $32 billion in subsidies to farmers annually, according to the finance ministry.<br /> <br /> <strong>How are farmers coping?</strong><br /> <br /> Water shortages, floods and increasingly erratic weather caused by climate change, as well as debt, have taken a heavy toll on farmers.<br /> <br /> According to a Punjab government report in 2017, the northern state will use up all its groundwater resources by 2039.<br /> <br /> More than 300,000 farmers have killed themselves since the 1990s. Nearly 10,300 did so in 2019, according to the latest official figures.<br /> <br /> Farmers and their workers are also abandoning agriculture in droves -- 2,000 of them every day according to the last census in 2011.<br /> <br /> <strong> What did Modi promise?</strong><br /> <br /> Indian governments have long made big promises to farmers -- a crucial vote bank -- and Modi is no exception, vowing to double their incomes by 2022.<br /> <br /> In September, parliament passed three laws that enabled farmers to sell to any buyer they chose, rather than to commission agents at state-controlled markets.<br /> <br /> These markets were set up in the 1950s to stop the exploitation of farmers and pay a minimum support price (MSP) for certain produce.<br /> <br /> The system has led to farmers sometimes growing crops unsuited to the local climate, such as thirsty rice in Punjab, and can be fertile ground for corruption.<br /> <br /> But many farmers see the MSP as a vital safety net, and fear being unable to compete with large farms and being paid low prices by big corporations.<br /> <br /> "The laws will harm the farmers and in turn destroy our livelihood," said Sukhwinder Singh, a farm worker who cycled 400 kilometres (250 miles) to the protests.<br /> <br /> "Land, cattle and farmers will be enslaved by rich people. This government wants to finish us," he said.<br /> <br /> <strong> What can Modi do? </strong><br /> <br /> Modi has drawn fire before -- a disastrous withdrawal of large banknotes in 2016, for example -- but his popularity has held up, winning a landslide re-election in 2019.<br /> <br /> From late 2019, there were months of protests against a citizenship law imposed by Modi's Hindu-nationalist BJP government that was seen as discriminatory to Muslims.<br /> <br /> But the BJP, with its clout in traditional and social media, was able to depict the demonstrators as "anti-nationals" before Covid-19 eventually snuffed out the protests.<br /> <br /> Modi, 70, has tried to brush off the current agitation as being stoked by an opportunistic opposition "misleading" the farmers.<br /> <br /> Some in his party have upped the ante by branding the protesters -- many of whom are Sikhs -- as "hooligans, Sikh separatists and anti-nationals".<br /> <br /> But with the farmers, it is different.<br /> <br /> They enjoy widespread support among Indians and ignoring them clashes with Modi's self-styled image as a champion of the poor.<br /> <br /> In rural areas, where 70 percent of Indians live, there is already a growing perception that Modi is cosy with big business and billionaire industrialists such as Mukesh Ambani, Asia's richest person.<br /> <br /> "There are many things which are outdated in the agriculture sector. But reforms cannot be pushed like this," Arati Jerath, a political analyst, told AFP.<br /> <br /> "This is so far the biggest challenge to the government... It will have to find a way to walk back and save face at the same time."