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After struggling for more than a year, in November 2022, the farmers withdrew the controversial agricultural law from the government. In this month of February also, farmers have again opened their front to get many other demands met from the Central Government.
This time their main demands are the implementation of the central government's promise of ending Morcha by 2022, minimum support price (MSP) and guarantee of government procurement of 23 crops. Every year the Central Government declares minimum support price for wheat, paddy, millet, maize, ragi, jowar, groundnut, soybean, sunflower, sesame, cotton, urad, masar, mustard and flax etc., but apart from paddy, the government declares minimum support price for wheat, It also declares minimum support price for. Agencies purchase other crops only in case of emergency. In this regard, the government has argued that it neither has the capital to purchase these crops nor the warehouses for storage.
There are many crops with MSP which require special types of warehouses for their storage as they get perishable quickly. Farmers are completely dependent on traders to sell almost all crops except wheat and paddy. Traders take advantage of this and rob farmers by purchasing crops at rates much lower than the MSP. This is the reason why alternative crop rotation could not be successful in Punjab, Haryana and other agricultural states.
This time several rounds of talks took place between the farmers' organizations and the delegation of Union Ministers, but no solution could be found. The Center had offered a written guarantee to the farmers for the purchase of five crops (cotton, mango, Rajmanh, maize and peas) for five years, but the farmers are adamant on the purchase of 23 crops.
Selling crops at or above the MSP rate is extremely important for the livelihood of approximately 13 crore middle class and small farmers who grow wheat and paddy in India. After the farmers' struggle of 2021-22, there is a heated debate among economists regarding government intervention in the markets.
Some economists say that due to strict implementation of MSP, traders will shy away from buying crops from the markets. Due to this, farmers may have to suffer losses instead of profits. But some economists say the minimum support price could give farmers a solid platform to negotiate crop rates with traders. They will be able to sell their crops to the government or traders, whoever gives the highest rate.
This will increase the spirit of competition and farmers will benefit. A survey covering the years 2000 to 2012 was conducted by Pusa University. This survey has revealed the fact that the income of farmers of states like Punjab, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh, which strictly implement the Mandi system, has increased and the income of farmers of states like Bihar, Karnataka and Gujarat, which ignore the Mandi system, has increased. Is. Have increased. We are suffering financial losses. The guarantee of purchase at minimum support price by the government is expected to benefit the farmers in two ways. The first is that they will be able to get a fair price by selling their crops to the government.
Secondly, due to the presence of the government in the markets, traders will have to buy crops at higher prices from the government, which will directly benefit the farmers. I have seen this incident with my own eyes in Amritsar Dana Mandi. In the years when there was no government procurement, traders used to find hundreds of loopholes in the lots to buy cheaper paddy from the farmers.
The rate was reduced by saying that the grain is green, the grain has turned black, the moisture is high or the grain is very dry. But in the year when there was government procurement, the traders did not see any defect in the paddy and they used to buy the paddy by paying more than the government rate. The Department of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare of the Government of India has released a report in which the facts have come to light that in 2017 and 2021, farmers of Haryana and Chhattisgarh got prices of paddy much higher than the MSP because at that time 70% of the paddy was procured in these states. It was done by central and state agencies.
Even if the government guarantees crop purchase at MSP, after a few years its result is likely to be similar to that of the NREGA employment scheme. The initial success of NREGA contributed miraculously to raising the wages of workers and reducing the socio-economic gap. But now the situation has become such that not a single state of India is able to meet the target of providing employment to workers for at least 100 days in a year. In the year 2021-22, workers at the national level got only 50 days of work on an average in a year. Only some states like Rajasthan, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh have given more than 50 days of work and Assam, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar etc. have given only 30-32 days of work.
It is quite possible that as parliamentary elections are nearing, due to political compulsion, government procurement will be guaranteed on MSP and after the elections, the condition of this guarantee will also become like that of NREGA scheme. However, the central government finds wheat imported from countries like Australia cheaper than wheat purchased from domestic markets.
Due to this, MSP is given for 23 crops, but only wheat and paddy are procured, because it has become a compulsion of the Central Government to purchase wheat and paddy as per requirement for the scheme which provides free ration to about 81 crore poor people. , But when crops in a state are being sold at prices lower than MSP and farmers are suffering losses, then the government should intervene in the market. Farmers do not expect that the government will help them in such a difficult situation. That's why they are asking for written guarantee.
Economists also have different opinions regarding the purchase of crops. Some say that the government should buy every grain of the farmers' crops and some believe that the government should intervene in the purchase of crops so that the farmers get at least a rate equal to the MSP. It is possible that in the states where there are governments of the ruling party at the Centre, there may be procurement as per MSP and where there are governments of opposition parties, there may be less or no procurement to teach them a lesson. At present it is a matter of 'look at the oil, look at the flow of oil' and the farmers and the central government are adamant on their respective stances. Only time will tell which side the camel will sit on.