YEAR-WISE WHEAT PRODUCTION AND PURCHASE BY GOVT AT MSP

limitations in selling their food grains/crops at MSP,” the Niti Aayog found in its ‘Evaluation Study of Efficacy of Minimum Support Price on Farmers’.

The sample study was published in 2016 with a reference period between 2007-08 and 2010-11 and it covered farmers of 36 districts (six in UP) under 14 states.

Ajit Kumar Singh, an economist and former director of Giri Institute of Developmental Studies, said it was true that only a fraction of farmers sold their food grains to government agencies, the role of which was very limited.

“Our survey revealed that farmers sold more than half of their produce to traders, 28.3% to the wholesalers, 25.8% to the village traders and only 14% to the government agencies,” he said, quoting a study commissioned to him by UP’s planning department in 2010.

These figures, according to him, indicated that agricultural marketing in the state was dominated by the traders and the role of government agencies was quite limited.

“As a result, the farmers do not get a fair value of their produce,” he said.

According to former additional director (food and civil supplies) AK Singh, sometimes farmers prefer to sell their food grain in the open market also because they get price above MSP there.

“In that sense, MSP is a useful system as it sometimes forces private agencies to offer a better price to farmers,” he said.

The Niti Aayog also found in its study that due to unavailability of instant cash at MSP, the small and marginal farmers preferred to sell to traders who made on the spot payments.

“It was also found that sometimes, the small and marginal farmers resorted to distress sales due to urgent need for money or to repay the loan taken before the sowing season. Some also pointed out that MSP was too low as it did not cover the rising farming costs,” the report said.

Singh also found in his study that farmers faced a lot of problems in selling their produce in the regulated markets. Nearly three-fourths of the farmers surveyed complained of undue deductions. Often, the produce was declared of lower quality