Nearly seven months after the farmers’ movement ended, the central government on Monday constituted a committee to ‘promote zero-budget based farming’ and make the ‘Minimum Support Price (MSP)’ more effective and transparent. However, no legal guarantee on MSP has been decided yet and it is one of the major demands of the United Kisan Morcha of farmer unions.
A notification issued by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare said, “As announced by the Hon’ble Prime Minister to change the cropping pattern keeping in view the changing needs of the country, to promote zero budget based farming and to make MSP more effective. A committee will be constituted to make it more transparent. The committee will consist of representatives of the central government and state governments, farmers, agricultural scientists and agricultural economists. The committee will be headed by former Agriculture Secretary Sanjay Agarwal and will have a total of 26 members.
Three members of this committee are from the United Kisan Morcha. Although their names have not been mentioned. While the committee has announced the names of representatives of other farmer groups. The members of other farmers’ organizations included in the committee are Gunwant Patil, Krishnaveer Choudhary, Pramod Kumar Choudhary, Guni Prakash and Syed Pasha Patel.
The committee has also been asked to suggest four points related to crop diversification. It includes “mapping of existing cropping patterns of agro-ecological regions of producing and consuming states, strategy of diversification policy to change cropping patterns according to the changing needs of the country, provision of a system to ensure remunerative prices for the sale of new crops and Contains reviews and suggestions on micro irrigation scheme.
The committee will recommend measures to strengthen the agricultural marketing system as per the changing requirements of the country, so that farmers can get remunerative price for their produce by taking advantage of domestic and export opportunities. According to the notification, the committee will suggest to make MSP more effective and transparent and provide fair price to the farmers of the country.