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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | In Maharashtra, demand grows for a minimum support price for all farm produce -Abhiram Ghadyalpatil

In Maharashtra, demand grows for a minimum support price for all farm produce -Abhiram Ghadyalpatil

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published Published on Jun 20, 2017   modified Modified on Jun 20, 2017
-Livemint.com

In a year when Maharashtra’s agriculture sector recorded a growth of 12.5%, a look at why farmers in regions as distantly located as Nashik and Wardha are up in arms

Ahmedabad/ Nashik/ Warda (Maharashtra):
Rajendra Borgude, 42, is a prosperous farmer half of whose 50 acre-irrigated farmland goes under grape cultivation. He drives a Nissan Terrano and was able to get a crop loan of Rs12 lakh from Nashik District Central Co-operative Bank (NDCCB) in 2016. In the first week of June, Borgude led the angry farmers in Naitale in blocking roads, throwing milk and farm produce on streets, and bringing agriculture markets in the area to a halt—part farmers’ strike in Maharashtra from 1-12 June.

The reason for his anger: no guarantee of an assured price for his grapes and tomatoes. “I had to sell grapes for Rs10 a kilogram to local traders. Last year the cost was Rs40 per kg,” he says.

Maharashtra government has declared a farm loan waiver but has yet to define the criteria for eligibility. “Loan waiver is welcome though I am not sure I will get the benefit. But the real solution is a legally guaranteed minimum support price for all farm produce. Unless I am guaranteed a price of at least Rs40 per kg for grapes, farming is a gamble,” says Borgude.

Fruits and vegetables are not among some 28 farm commodities which get a government-fixed minimum support price (MSP).

Some 535 km away Gajanan Charde, a dryland farmer in Vidarbha’s Wardha district, is in distress even though his produce is among those crops that carry an MSP. Charde is bitter with Prime Minister Narendra Modi who, speaking in Vidarbha as a Prime Ministerial aspirant in March 2014, promised a higher MSP by factoring in 50% cost of production. In 2016-17, he gave an MSP of only Rs5,050 per quintal (or 100kg) for tur.

“Last year, the traders were offering Rs9,000 per quintal because there was a shortage of tur. I thought Modi would give at least Rs6,000 since he wanted more tur grown,” Charde says. He carries a debt of over Rs1 lakh from a nationalized bank. “Had I got a higher MSP for tur, I would not need a loan waiver,” he adds.

In the last three years, the MSP for tur or arhar has gone up from Rs4,350 to Rs4,625 to Rs5,050 per quintal. In the same three years, the tur yield in Maharashtra, India’s largest tur producing state, has gone from 510,000 tonnes to 444,000 tonnes to a record high 2.35 million tonnes in 2016-17.

Charde was one of those farmers who responded to Modi’s appeals and shifted from cotton to tur expecting a higher MSP. But he sold his 25 quintals for only Rs126,250 at the MSP.

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Livemint.com, 19 June, 2017, http://www.livemint.com/Politics/JCI7osu5PKC8iqtDajeWwJ/In-Maharashtra-demand-grows-for-a-minimum-support-price-for.html


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