Police personnel block a highway with concrete boulders on the Haryana-Rajasthan border to stop farmers from joining protests in New Delhi against the central government's recent agricultural reforms, in Rewari district, India, on Dec 13, 2020. (PRAKASH SINGH / AFP)

NEW DELHI - Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday defended India’s biggest farm reforms in decades but offered to “very humbly” hold further talks with farmers protesting against the laws they fear would erode their incomes.

In online remarks to farmers of the country’s biggest wheat-producing state, Madhya Pradesh, Modi said there should be no cause for concern and repeated the government’s position that farmers would be assured of a price like earlier.

Modi said there should be no cause for concern and repeated the government’s position that farmers would be assured of a price like earlier

“The modern facilities available to the farmers of major nations should also be available for those from India, it cannot be delayed any longer,” he said.

“Still, if anyone has any apprehension, and in the interest of the farmers of the country and to address their concerns, we are very humbly ready to talk on every issue.”

Modi's comments came after India’s Supreme Court declined calls earlier in the day to ban a weekslong farmers’ protest and asked the government and unions to help form a committee of experts to mediate between them.

“We make it clear that we recognize the fundamental right to protest against a law. There is no question of balancing or curtailing it. But it should not damage anyone’s life or property,” Chief Justice S. A. Bobde said.

Thousands of farmers angered by three agricultural laws that they say threaten their livelihoods have intensified their protests by blocking highways and camping out on the outskirts of the capital New Delhi.

Petitioners had approached the Supreme Court to complain that the protests had hampered drivers and making it difficult for people to access emergency medical services.

Thousands of farmers angered by three agricultural laws that they say threaten their livelihoods have intensified their protests by blocking highways and camping out on the outskirts of the capital New Delhi

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“We are of the view at this stage that the farmers’ protest should be allowed to continue without impediment and without any breach of peace either by the protesters or the police,” Bobde said.

Rakesh Tikait, a farmers’ leader, said after Modi’s speech that the premier was trying to privatize agriculture to benefit companies and not them.

Modi’s administration in September introduced the farm bills that the government says will unshackle farmers from having to sell their produce only at regulated wholesale markets and make contract farming easier.

Farmers insist that the new laws will leave them at the mercy of big corporations.

READ MORE: Farmers protest across India against Modi's liberalization

Six rounds of talks between government ministers and farmers’ union leaders have failed to resolve the situation.

The government has said while the laws can be amended, it is against repealing the bills. Farmers last week rejected a government’s proposal to amend the legislation.

India’s vast agriculture sector, which makes up nearly 15 percent of the country’s US$2.9 trillion economy, employs about half of its 1.3 billion people.