New Delhi:

Farmers pushing the government to revamp the MSP, or minimum support price, policy met Congress MP Rahul Gandhi inside the Parliament complex Wednesday morning.

Mr Gandhi, who is also Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, met a delegation of 12 farmer leaders from Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, and Karnataka.

Senior Congress leaders KC Venugopal and Deepender Singh Hooda were also part of the meeting, as were MPs Amarinder Singh Raja Warring and Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa.

There was confusion before the meeting as the farmers were not allowed inside. “We invited them… but they are not allowing them inside Parliament. They are farmers, maybe this is why…” Mr Gandhi said.

“…you will have to ask the Prime Minister the reason for this…”

कुछ किसान मुझसे मिलना चाहते थे, इसलिए मैंने उन्हें अंदर ऑफिस में बुलाया था।

लेकिन उन्हें अंदर आने नहीं दिया गया, इसका कारण आपको प्रधानमंत्री से पूछना पड़ेगा।

: नेता विपक्ष श्री @RahulGandhi

संसद परिसर, नई दिल्ली pic.twitter.com/jbidAjAFqV

— Congress (@INCIndia) July 24, 2024

“Rahul Gandhi will raise the voice of farmers inside Parliament…” Mr Warring told NDTV after the meeting. On reports the farmers are planning another march on Delhi, he said, “They have all rights to come to Delhi and protest (and) if a private member’s bill is required then we will bring that too.”

Earlier, sources said the farmers spoke to Mr Gandhi about issues in their respective states, and also asked him to introduce a private member’s bill to fulfill long-standing demands – to revise MSP and ensure legal backing. These demands have been at the core of their protests since it began in 2020.

Farmer unions across the country want the MSP – a purchase guarantee set by the government to protect agriculturists from steep fall in crop prices – to be based on the Swaminathan Commission’s C2+50 formula, which factors in cost of capital and land rent when calculating support prices.

READ | “Rejected”: Farmers Dismiss Centre’s 5-Year MSP Contract Offer

The government, however, is reluctant to drop the existing A2+FL+50 per cent method.

Apart from changing the formula, farmers also want legal backing for this purchase price; at present the government is not obliged to buy, for example, 10 per cent of a paddy crop at the floor price.

In 2020/21 lakhs of farmers gathered to march on Delhi, prompting the government to set up war-zone like defence measures around the national capital. The ‘farmer army’ – complete with tractors and supplies for a months-long siege – was held to makeshift camps blocking key roads into the city.

NDTV Explains | What Are Key Demands Of Farmers That Remain Unresolved?

The furore over the protests also made international headlines and sparked bitter fights between the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the opposition, led by Mr Gandhi’s Congress.

After months of blockades around Delhi and violent clashes between farmers and police in various states, the government was forced to stand down and roll back three contentious farm laws.

The MSP issue, however, has rumbled on, with farmers insistent the formula change.

A second round of protests – a ‘Delhi Chalo 2.0’ that also demanded loan waivers and freezing of electricity tariffs for farmers – erupted in February, months before a general election in which the BJP lost seats in key states and after talks with the farmers failed to resolve the situation.

READ | Farmers Prep For Delhi March After Haryana Told To Remove Blocks

The February protests were paused after the government made a fresh offer, but that was rejected by the farmers; the government had, they said, again failed to meet a core demand – the MSP row.

NDTV Explains | Centre’s 5-Year MSP Plan, And Why Farmers Are Not Convinced

The government had proposed a five-year MSP contract, based on the old formula.

Meanwhile, on Monday two farmer unions – the Samyukt Kisan Morcha (non-political) and Kisan Mazdoor Morcha – declared they would burn effigies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

They also plan to take out a nationwide tractor rally on August 15, Independence Day.

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The perennial issue of fair pricing of farm produce reigns supreme, now coupled with calls for legal assurances of Minimum Support Price. File
| Photo Credit: PTI

As the general elections draw closer, agrarian concerns have once again taken centre stage. Farmers from the heartland of the Green Revolution have travelled to the border of the capital to not only voice their distress, but also to shape the electoral discourse. The ruling dispensation, sensing adverse electoral implications, attempted to reach out to the farmers. It said it was ready to procure pulses, maize, and cotton at MSP, but this was contingent upon farmers guaranteeing crop diversification. However, these efforts were rejected as the core issues were not addressed, say farm leaders.

The perennial issue of fair pricing of farm produce reigns supreme, now coupled with calls for legal assurances of Minimum Support Price (MSP). However, beyond mere legal mandates lies the pressing concern of maintaining self-sufficiency in food production and addressing the ongoing challenge of distribution. This underscores the ethical imperative of anchoring a legal guarantee for MSP.

The MSP regime was a vital instrument for ensuring food security in India. Given the unique nature of agriculture, farmers lack the ability to exert significant influence, let alone determine the price of their produce. This constitutes a ‘market failure.’ Thus, MSP ensures that agricultural commodity prices remain above a predetermined benchmark to facilitate remunerative price discovery.

Produce and perish trap

The MSP is announced annually for 23 crops covering both the kharif and rabi seasons, well in advance of sowing, with 21 of them being food crops. However, despite the announcements, the implementation of MSP remains poor. Only 6% of farmers, primarily those cultivating paddy and wheat in States such as Punjab, benefit from MSP. Most transactions involving these essential food commodities occur below the MSP, rendering farming economically unviable for the majority of producers in India. As a result, farmers are trapped in a dangerous cycle of produce and perish, leading to crippling debt and deaths by suicide. All these emphasise the pressing need to ensure MSP, including the one recommended by the eminent agricultural scientist M.S. Swaminathan (with a 50% profit margin).

Several articles under the Constitution, as well as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants, support the legal recourse to guaranteeing MSP. According to a recent opinion survey by an English TV channel, 83% of landowners and 77% of farm labourers expressed solidarity with the agitating farmers. Notably, 64% of the public also endorsed the farmers’ demand for a legal right to MSP.

Sugarcane growers already benefit from a ‘statutory’ MSP, which sugar factories strictly adhere to when purchasing cane from farmers. A few years ago, Maharashtra attempted to amend its Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) Act to prevent the purchase of agricultural produce below MSP, but the effort failed due to a lack of political will and a comprehensive strategy. The Karnataka Agricultural Price Commission has laid out a clear roadmap, including potential financial commitments, to ensure a legally binding MSP for crops cultivated in the State. A private member bill on The Farmers’ Right to Guaranteed Remunerative MSP for Agricultural Commodities was tabled in Parliament in 2018. The Andhra Pradesh government unveiled a draft bill last year aimed at guaranteeing MSP for crops grown in the State. These efforts show that the objective of establishing a legal recourse to MSP has not emerged suddenly, nor is it impossible to attain.

The solution

A minor amendment to respective State APMC Acts or the Centre’s Essential Commodities Act would suffice to introduce a law ensuring that no transactions of farmers’ produce occur at prices below the MSP. The budget outlay will not be as large as projected if legal recourse to MSP is accompanied by essential backward and forward linkages. Crop planning, market intelligence (including price forecasts), and other pre-sowing measures, along with the establishment of post-harvest infrastructure for efficient storage, transportation, and processing of farm commodities, greatly assist in managing the post-harvest glut in the market. Therefore, a legal route to MSP, complemented by the development of such linkages, would provide protection against “market failures” in addressing the surplus, rather than leading to “market distortion,” as claimed by some mainstream economists.

Even enhancing MSP to provide a 50% profit margin over total cost is not challenging, considering that current margins already stand at around 22%. Finally, effective procurement and distribution, as envisaged under the National Food Security Act, 2013, is the most appropriate means to not only ensure MSP but also address hunger and malnutrition.

The PM-AASHA comprises schemes for price support and price deficiency payment, along with incentives to private traders to ensure MSP. While it possessed all the necessary elements as precursors to guarantee the MSP, its side-lining in policy circles highlights how political expediency rules the roost.

At present, farmers hardly get 30% of the price paid by the consumers; this will increase if MSP is guaranteed. Establishing a legally binding MSP will anger intermediaries as their share will get reduced. Often, government intervention, and particularly a legally binding MSP, is deemed a problem. It is this adherence to free market dogma that is preventing a just solution to the ongoing crisis in farmer incomes.

T.N. Prakash Kammardi is an agricultural economist and former chairman, Karnataka Agricultural Prices Commission, Government of Karnataka

A file photo of Bharatiya Kisan Sangha national general secretary Mohini Mohan Mishra.
| Photo Credit: The Hindu

The Bharatiya Kisan Sangh (BKS) — a farmers’ body affiliated to the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) — has condemned the violent protests by some farm unions who are demanding guaranteed minimum support prices (MSP), but it also rebuked the BJP-led Union government for not paying heed to the farmers’ pleas. The BKS warned the government that its nationalism, discipline, and preference for dialogue should not be mistaken as signs of weakness.

“When farmer organisations of the country come to Delhi in a disciplined and peaceful manner and present the problems and demands of the farmers to the right forums, the government does not consider it appropriate to talk to them. The attitude of the government is regrettable, which is why the possibility of violent agitation increases,” BKS general secretary Mohini Mohan Mishra told journalists on Saturday.

He added that the ‘politicisation’ of the farming community and their demands is adding to their woes.

‘Governments least concerned about farmers’

The BKS statement comes against the backdrop of the thousands of farmers gathered at the Punjab and Haryana border, attempting to enter Delhi with their demands for a legal guarantee of MSPs for their produce. The agitation that started earlier has been marred by multiple deaths at protest sites allegedly caused by the actions of the police, who have used pellet guns, tear gas shells and lathis in clashes with the protesting farmers.

Editorial |Farming consensus: On the government and the farmers on protest 

In December 2022, thousands of farmers under the aegis of the BKS had raised a demand for MSPs among others from Delhi’s Ramlila Maidan. Announcing that non-violence was their choice but not a compulsion, they warned that the government would face trouble if their demands were not met. At a gathering of farmers from 560 districts of the country, the BKS declared that it was now evident that the governments, both at the States and the Centre, are least concerned for farmers.

Remunerative prices needed

Speaking about the resolutions passed after a two day annual meeting of BKS office bearers in Ajmer, Mr. Mishra said that farmers should get remunerative prices on the basis of their input costs, adding that GST on agricultural inputs should be abolished.

“We demand that there should be a substantial increase in the Kisan Samman Nidhi given by the government. Also, genetically modified (GM) seeds should not be allowed in market,” Mr. Mishra said, adding that seeds are the right of farmers and governments should make arrangements to stop the exploitation of farmers in the marketplace. The BKS resolutions also called for a comprehensive policy for the marketing of grains.

The BKS statements on farmers demands for guaranteed MSPs, however, run contrary to the tone of an editorial in the Organiser, an English mouthpiece of the RSS, the BKS’ parent body. The editorial had claimed that massive mobilisation and blockade of roads is being done by farmers with “unreasonable” demands, such as legal guarantees for MSPs for all crops, loan waivers, and pensions for all farmers.