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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | The changing politics of food price inflation -Sonal Varma and Aurodeep Nandi

The changing politics of food price inflation -Sonal Varma and Aurodeep Nandi

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published Published on Feb 28, 2018   modified Modified on Feb 28, 2018
-Livemint.com

Linking MSPs to a multiple of costs and ignoring other dynamics, such as demand and global prices, risks creating distortions and disincentivizing productivity

Government policymaking seems to be making a volte-face from supporting consumers (by keeping food inflation low), to supporting producers (by raising food prices).

In the 2018-19 Union budget, the government “decided to keep minimum support prices (MSP) for all unannounced crops of kharif at least at one-and-a-half times of their production cost” and rabi MSPs had already been adjusted pursuant to this formula. This cost was later clarified as covering all input expenses incurred by farmers as well as the imputed value of unpaid family labour (A2+FL).

Other than MSPs, there have also been announcements on trade policies (higher import tariffs on pulses, sugar and edible oils), on ensuring that the MSP benefits are realized by farmers (via a yet-to-be-announced form of fiscal transfer) and states announcing “bonuses” above MSP.

This shift in government policy makes both economic and political sense. Economically, a balance needs to be struck between consumers and producers. There is also a wider political game afoot; not only are key states like Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan brushing the dust off their voting machines, but the looming 2019 general election is ever present in the minds of the political cognoscenti.

To be fair, the government has launched medium-term initiatives, such as the E-National Agriculture Market, to meet its objective of doubling farmers’ real incomes, but the political cycle necessitates faster results.

This raises two pertinent questions: One, what are the macro implications; and two, will these policies materially change the agrarian outlook?

Both answers depend on how much MSPs will eventually increase. An MSP at least 1.5 times the production cost sounds large, but it is not. Consider this: Over the last four years, most rabi MSPs were already more than 1.5 times the production cost. When it comes to kharif, the MSPs over the last four years were lower: 1.41 times for paddy, 1.36 times for maize and more than 1.5 times the cost for only a few pulses. So this kharif MSP increase is material.

Assuming production costs grow at the past three-year average pace and that all future MSPs are fixed at a minimum of 1.5 times this cost or the latest mark-up given, whichever is higher, we estimate the weighted average kharif MSP could rise by 12.9% year-on-year in 2018-19 from 6% in 2017-18 (with a rise of 11.6% for paddy and over 40% for jowar, ragi and Niger seed). Given that rabi MSPs are already high, the weighted average rabi MSP rise should be lower at 6.6% next year. Even for kharif, the large MSP rise is a one-time event, as future increases will be a function of how input costs rise and the actual mark-up.

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Livemint.com, 27 February, 2018, http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/stLIRNoASgl8C9cHunttGK/The-changing-politics-of-food-price-inflation.html


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