Eight months after announcing the repeal of farm laws, the Centre on Monday set up a 29-member committee, as promised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to see how to make the minimum support price (MSP) more effective and transparent.
Besides, it will also suggest measures to promote zero-budget natural farming and crop diversification to fulfil the changing food security requirement.
Former agriculture secretary Sanjay Agarwal will head the committee. The representatives from the Centre and State Governments, farmers, agricultural scientists and agricultural economists have been taken into the committee.
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Govt forms MSP panel to discuss ways to make system effective
The Government has opened a door for the farmers’ union Sanyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) under which hundreds of farmers from Punjab, Haryana and Western UP had staged protests at Delhi borders for over a year pressing their demand on the legal guarantee of the MSP. The Government had earlier asked the SKM to provide at least three names, which it has not provided to the Government. The SKM is yet to take any official stand on the formation of the committee but have put question marks over the term of reference and composition of the committee.
The committee will give its report on making available MSP to farmers of the country by making the system more effective and transparent. It will also suggest giving more autonomy to the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) and measures to make it more scientific.
“To strengthen the Agricultural Marketing System as per the changing requirements of the country to ensure higher value to the farmers through remunerative prices of their produce by taking advantage of the domestic and export opportunities.” The notification issued by the Ministry of Agriculture said.
The other members of the committee are Ramesh Chand, a member of the NITI Aayog, agriculture economists Dr CSC Shekhar (Indian Institute of Economic Development) and Dr Sukhpal Singh (IIM, Ahmedabad), farmers from other organization - Gunwant Patil, Krishnaveer Choudhary, Pramod Kumar Choudhary, Guni Prakash and Sayyed Pasha Patel are the members of the committee. Besides, award winner farmer Bharat Bhushan Tyagi, Dilip Sanghani, Chairman, from IFFCO, Binod Anand, General Secretary from CNRI.
The committee will give its suggestions to make the farm advisory body Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) independent and also give its suggestions on zero-budget farming. Zero-budget natural farming, as the name implies, is a method of farming where the cost of growing and harvesting plants is zero. It will report on the export of agricultural products to increase the farmers’ income.
On the zero-budget-natural-farming, the committee will map existing cropping patterns of agro-ecological zones of producer and consumer states and evolve a strategy for diversification policy to change the cropping pattern according to the changing needs of the country. The committee will also make arrangements for agricultural diversification and a system to ensure remunerative prices for the sale of new crops.
The committee will also suggest methods and means for international coordination to strengthen the value chain development of natural farming and chain of laboratories for organic certification of products produced through natural farming.
While announcing the repeal of three farm laws in November last year, Prime Minister Modi had promised to set up a committee to make the MSP system more effective and transparent as well as suggest ways to promote zero budgeting based agriculture.
The three laws largely aimed at encouraging corporate investment in the agriculture sector, giving farmers an alternative platform outside of the existing ‘mandis’ to sell their produce and strengthening the framework for contract farming.
The farmers had demanded the committee be formed, among other demands, to end their protests.
Last month, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, chaired by the Prime Minister, approved the MSP for 17 Kharif crops for the 2022-23 marketing season.