The crucial meeting of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) with stakeholders will be held in New Delhi on Friday.
This particular round assumes significance in the backdrop of the Finance Minister Arun Jaitely’s budget proposals on agricultural income.
Farmers’ organisations and non-governmental organisations express concern that the CACP might take cues from the Budget rather than taking into consideration of the demands from the farmers.
“The prices recommended by the Commission should be such that they seek to pull farmers out of the current crisis through the MSP (minimum support price) route, and not business as usual (which is some margin over A2+FL),” the Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture (ASHA) feels.
A2+FL (actual paid out cost plus imputed value of family labour) is one of the models adopted by the commission to ascertain the cost of production.
“This does not suffice, and has not sufficed for many years now. We need to take committed and bold measures that address the farmers’ crisis. CACP should look at Net Returns of farmers, as its role is critical in the Government’s target of doubling farmers’ incomes,” Kavitha Kuruganti, Convenor of ASHA, has said in a letter to the Chairperson of CACP, ahead of the meeting.
“Looking at Net Returns would mean that you take the C2 cost head for fixing MSPs and not A2+FL,” she said.