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NDA’s Agri-pricing Politics
Where is the room for farmers in the government’s farm-price policies?
The Central Statistics Office’s latest agricultural growth estimates, based on the 2011–12 gross domestic product (GDP) series, have revealed that the nominal gross value added (GVA) of agriculture in the October–December 2018 quarter dropped to a 14-year low of 2.04%. With the farm production in this quarter being nearly 3% higher than that in October–
December 2017, this abysmal performance of agriculture in current value terms is indicative of tumbling farm prices, which, in turn, put a question mark on the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government’s agricultural pricing policy, particularly the ostentatious hike of the minimum support price (MSP). While various reports have already documented that the crops covered by the MSP had sold at prices that were 20%–30% lower than the declared prices, empirical estimates show that even with augmented government procurement of pulses and oilseeds, MSP can benefit only about a fifth of the farmers in the country.
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