About 1500 from the local Indian community have staged a protest at Auckland's Aotea Square to raise concerns over new agricultural laws in their home country they fear may hurt farmers there.
Three new laws were passed in India in September to deregulate the agricultural sector by encouraging farmers to sell directly to companies. This would remove the role of the government, which has long been the middleman, and guaranteeing minimum prices for crops.
"We want New Zealand to pressure the Indian government to repeal these laws which will force farmers there to go into further debt," said Harpreet Singh, one of the protest organisers.
Singh's father was formerly a farmer and he has an uncle in farming, and says many Indians living here will have families who were directly or indirectly involved with farming.
