Day 44 – Q 1.Do you think increasing the MSPs provide a sustainable solution to address agrarian distress in India? Critically examine.
1. Do you think increasing the MSPs provide a sustainable solution to address agrarian distress in India? Critically examine.
क्या आपको लगता है कि एमएसपी में वृद्धि भारत में कृषि संकट को हल करने के लिए एक सतत समाधान प्रदान करती है? समालोचनात्मक जांच करें।
Introduction:
Agrarian Distress is anxiety stemming from the failure to successfully cultivate land. Agrarian distress has led farmers to commit suicide in recent years.
Body:
Agrarian distress is mainly characterized by
- Over indebtedness of farmers and exploitation from money lending sources.
- Farming becoming increasingly non-remunerative: increase in cost of production, distress sale.
- Prevailing poverty and lower purchasing power of agricultural households.
The minimum support prices (MSP), one of the tools to deal with agrarian distress, are announced by the Government of India at the beginning of the sowing season for certain crops on the basis of the recommendations CACP. Recent government announced MSP of 1.5 times of production cost for farmers.
MSP helps in
- Insuring agricultural producers against any sharp fall in farm prices.
- Food security.
- Also encourages higher investment and production of agriculture commodities.
However, it does not provide sustainable solution to agrarian distress as it only guarantees price for produce. What we need today is holistic approach towards the development of agriculture sector which faces number of issues like
- Rain fed nature of agriculture (over 60% of net sown area).
- Technology fatigue.
- Access, adequacy and timeliness of institutional credit.
- Lack of opportunities for assured and remunerative marketing.
- Adverse meteorological factors resulting from climate change.
- Declining per-capita agricultural landholding.
- Lower investment.
And moreover, MSP distorts cropping pattern, leads to inflation, leads to unsustainable agricultural practices and even NSSO study has pointed out that it has mostly benefited large farmers while 70% of farmers are unaware.
Conclusion:
Apart from MSP, there is a need for increasing public spending in rural areas especially in irrigation, drainage, land development, water conservation, focus on agricultural credit and enhanced extension activities, creating farm related employments and skilling people to move them out of agriculture.
Best answer: chandler
