'Low food prices to hit output'

In its zeal to make low-priced food available to as many as possible, the majority on the National Advisory Council may deal a mortal blow to farmers and output, warn farmer groups.

The proposal to distribute low-priced foodgrain to 80 per cent of the rural population has nothing in it to incentivise cultivation. Vijay Jawandhia of the Shetkari Sangathana says the least the NAC could have done was to recommend that the MS Swaminathan committee recommendations be implemented. That would have meant the minimum support price included 50 per cent of the margin on profit unlike 15 per cent now. Swaminathan is himself an NAC member.

If you want to distribute food grains almost free to 80 per cent of rural people, they have even less incentive to grow any food, he says. He bases his premise on the experience of Vidarbha, where farmers grew jowar on 40 per cent of their crop land till the Public Distribution System (PDS) was introduced. They gew it despite the fact that they earned very little from it. The moment cheap rice and wheat became available, farmers promptly switched over to cotton and soyabean, he says.

Unless you address the security of the food producer, there can be no food security, he says. When you are giving millets at Re 1 a kg, why not subsidise the millet grower, too, rather than expect him to subsidise the consumer, asked Jawandhia.

Devinder Sharma, agricultural economist, says the least the NAC could have done was to spell out how the PDS should be reformed and how local procurement should be done.

Rakesh Tikait, spokesperson of the Bharatiya Kisan Union, says the recommendations totally ignore the need to boost cultivation. What is in it to enthuse farmers to grow more, he asks. When you justify a three-fold increase in salaries of MPs citing cost rise, should that not also lead to increase in the earnings of the farmers? He said the food security bill was only an entitlement for black marketeers.