In first meet, committee on MSP sets up sub-groups to discuss key issues

The committee, headed by former Agriculture Secretary Sanjay Agrawal, has 26 members including the chairman and three membership slots are kept for Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) that had rejected the committee and stayed away from the meeting.

Speaking to The Indian Express, an official said that broad discussions were held on the committee’s three-point agenda — the MSP, natural farming and crop diversification. This was the first meeting of the panel notified on July 18, 2022, and preliminary discussions were held, the official said.

The official said that during the meeting, it was decided to form internal informal groups on all three agenda points for deliberations. The groups will overlap with each other, he said.

While no official statement was issued, the Agriculture Ministry tweeted, “During the first meeting of the committee, suggestions were made regarding programmes and plans for area expansion under Indian natural farming system through value-chain development and research for future requirements.”

“Suggestions were also made regarding a systematic implementation of farmer-friendly alternative certification and marketing system for natural farming processes and products,” the ministry said in a tweet. The ministry said that suggestions were made on the development of a chain of laboratories for international coordination on methods and organic certification of the products produced to strengthen the value-chain development of natural farming.

As per the Agriculture Ministry’s July 18 notification, the committee will give “suggestions to make available MSP to farmers of the country by making the system more effective and transparent.” It will also give suggestions on “practicality to give more autonomy to the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) and measures to make it more scientific”.

It will also give recommendations to “strengthen the agricultural marketing system as per the changing requirements to ensure higher value to the farmers through remunerative prices of their produce by taking advantage of the domestic and export opportunities”. The committee has also been tasked to suggest five points regarding natural farming, besdies suggesting for programmes and schemes for value chain development, protocol validation & research for future needs and support for area expansion under the Indian natural farming system by publicity and through involvement and contribution of farmer organisations.

The committee has been asked to give suggestions on four points related to crop diversification, which include mapping of existing cropping patterns of agro-ecological zones of producer and consumer states; strategy for diversification policy to change the cropping pattern; arrangement for agricultural diversification & system to ensure remunerative prices; and review and suggestion on micro-irrigation schemes.