Lip service to farmers
Malladi Rama Rao
Kisan Mukti March
In recent weeks, sections of the political class and farmers groups
have been agitating for implementation of the Swaminathan
Committee’s recommendation that calls for a substantial hike in
Minimum Support Price (MSC) for food crops. The Swaminathan
committee, as the National Commission for Farmers' headed by
noted agronomist M S Swaminathan is called, was appointed during
the UPA regime at the height of farmers’ suicides in Vidarbha.
It said the
MSP should be total costs plus 50 per cent. The UPA treated the
recommendation as a PUC – paper under consideration.
The Modi government has been claiming that it has fixed MSP at 50 per
cent above the cost of production. There are no takers for its claim though.
Reason? The flaw in its methodology. Fifty years since the Green Revolution,
Indian agriculture remains in the crisis mode.
For the Kharif MSP, the Modi government has added input costs
(expenditure on seeds, manure, chemicals, fuel, and irrigation and hired
labour costs) and the estimated cost of labour put in by a farmer family,
and then added 50 per cent of this value to arrive at the remunerative price
that can be offered. This is not what Swaminathan had advised. He wanted
the government to to add land rent and the cost of interest on the money
borrowed for farming as well, since small and marginal farmers and
landless farmers account for bulk of the tillers.
M.S. Swaminathan
On their part what the farmers are asking is a support price that takes
into account the cost of inputs plus rental value of owned/leased land plus family labour and the
interest on the value of
fixed assets. This the
Modi government is
unwilling to do. For
reasons only Modi’s egg
heads know.
The government is also
reluctant to appreciate
another ground reality
that farmers across the
country are still
dependent on local
money lenders who
charge exorbitant
interest.
So, farmers hit the
streets and staged ‘Kisan Mukti
March’ in the national capital for
the second time in 2018. More than
200 farmers’ organisations took
part in the latest march on 30th
Novermbet under the banner of All
India Kisan Sangharsh
Coordination Committee (AIKSCC).
Besides a remunerative minimum
price guaranteed as their right,
farmers want the government to
push through Parliament Freedom
from Debt Bill, which will provide
immediate crop loan waiver to
indebted farmers.
It is pertinent to ask whether
acceptance of Swaminathan
recommendation in toto will offer
manna to farmers. The answer is a
resounding no. There is no uniform
cost of production in India due to
factors like diversified agro-climate
conditions.So much so offering to
per cent profit over and above the
cost of production will discourage
efficiency and prompt fudging
which in turn is a sure invitation to
destroy the whole farm economy.
Instead of this short-sighted
discourse, it is time we worked on
making Indian agriculture globally
competitive and profitable to
farmers.
Farmers hit the streets
and staged ‘Kisan Mukti
March’ in the national
capital for the second
time in 2018. More than
200 farmers’
organisations took part
in the latest march on
30th Novermbet under
the banner of All India
Kisan Sangharsh
Coordination
Committee (AIKSCC).
Besides a remunerative
minimum price
guaranteed as their
right, farmers want the
government to push
through Parliament
Freedom from Debt Bill,
which will provide
immediate crop loan
waiver to indebted
farmers.
In the near term, however, the
government will do well to take a
relook at the working of the
Commission for Agriculture Costs
and Prices (CACP) that formally
recommends the MSP. The Commission was established in
1965 as the Agriculture Prices
Commission, and two decades later
it became CACP. It is supposed to
be a five-member body. But the
present government has not filled
the two posts meant to give
representation to farming
community. There is no
explanation as to why farmers
voice is shut out.
As of now, the MSP covers 23
commodities – seven cereals, five
pulses, seven oil seeds, and four
commercial crops. Right from the
Day One, the MSP formula suffered
from a major flaw. And it is the
government’s worry about the
MSP’s effect on cost of living and
general price level.
Higher MSP would naturally
translate into higher issue price at
the ration shop level. And higher
issue price would mean annoying
the consumers, particularly the
vocal middle class which is the
most pampered lot in the country.
So lip service to the farmer and fair
price to urban consumer became
the order of the day in India
long before the country
embraced liberalisation under
Manmohanomics.
Compounding the problem is the
tendency of the Mint Street to
address inflation – price rise as a
monetary problem while in reality
it is a fall–out of no more than
demand- supply mismatch.
Inflation in the Indian context
demands walking the extra mile to
flood the market with the
commodity in short supply and not
curbing money supply. Sadly, in our
competitive politics, loan waiver is
a good talking point and not the
root of the problem.
Paradox? Yes, well it is.Because
only 10 per cent of the country’s
farmers benefit from MSP and the
rest 90 per cent bulk of them small
and marginal farmers are at the
mercy of the money lender- trader
nexus, going by the study of the
National Sample Survey
Organisation (NSSO).