Periodic study of farm scenario in the offing

To bridge an information gap in Indian agriculture, National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) has proposed to undertake a regular and periodic study of the prevailing scenario in the farm sector. What’s more, the 1956-founded think tank wants its results to be disseminated through quarterly and six monthly reports.

The proposal, recently submitted to the agriculture ministry, also involves providing analytical inputs to understand emerging agricultural scenarios in short term besides medium and long terms.

For now, the ministry has supported the proposal. If finalised, it will be the first such exercise on periodic dissemination of data on agricultural outlook and situational analysis. Officials from the agriculture ministry say the reports and analysis will map the entire value chain from farm to retail and could be framed on the lines of current report by the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) report on global farming. FAO reports on global agriculture trends are one of the most comprehensive sources of information on a global scale.

Officials said NCAER had said such a study would take three months to prepare. It would be followed by the release of quarterly reports, semi-annual reports and monthly briefings.

The reports would be on diverse issues like weekly weather reports, wholesale prices, monthly consumer prices, import and export scenarios, area sown, crop yield, output, market arrivals, mandi prices, procurement, distribution, stocks and cost of production and consumption.

A senior agriculture ministry official said the reports would not only give the current and earlier scenarios in the above-mentioned areas, but would also future projections. Besides, the reports will give emerging price scenarios in all agriculture crops and what it will fetch for farmers and consumers.

Topics which have a direct impact on agriculture like infrastructure conditions, roads, electricity availability etc will also form part of the reports.

The reports will also try to look at state level perspectives as and when necessary and also provide district level information on the topics as and when possible.

“If approved,” the official said, “the study and regular updates will be vital link to the information shortfall plaguing Indian agriculture.”