The offer was offered at the fourth round of negotiations between the leaders of the Centre and the farmers, but the farmers turned it down because they want a formal guarantee for buying different commodities at the MSP.
In the lead-up to the Lok Sabha elections, the farmers have escalated their protests, despite the government’s futile attempts to appease them. The plan misrepresents the situation on the ground, where guaranteed procurement and the MSP regime are mostly limited to wheat and paddy.
Source: Telegraph India
Based on the recommendations of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices, the government has been raising the MSP for over 20 commodities, including wheat, rice, pulses, maize, and cotton, year after year. Despite the fact that farmers lose money every time their crop sells for less than the MSP, agricultural unions have always opposed the “paltry” increase.
The High-Level Committee on Restructuring of FCI, chaired by Shanta Kumar, has recommended the government to review the MSP policy back in 2015. “Effectively, price support operates primarily in wheat and paddy and that too in selected states,” the panel had stated. As a result, incentive structures are greatly skewed in favour of wheat and paddy.
Source: India Today
The committee had observed that over 6% of India’s agricultural households did not immediately profit from the purchase of wheat and paddy. In fact, this unfair system not only leaves most farmers in the country vulnerable to unethical market pressures, but it also hinders crop diversification. The lack of a strong statewide procurement guarantee made the government’s MSP plan for five crops unfeasible. If the obvious flaws in the MSP regime are fixed, then the greater goals of improving food security, raising farmers’ incomes, and decreasing reliance on imports can be accomplished.
What do you think about this? Comment below.
