Tenant farmers can access Fasal Bima if authorised by landowners: Govt

Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan says tenant farmers can now access Fasal Bima and MSP schemes if authorised by landowners, marking a policy shift

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The government on Tuesday said that tenant farmers can now avail benefits under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) if they are authorised by the landowning farmer.

 

Speaking in the Lok Sabha, Union Agriculture Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said that even for minimum support price (MSP) purchases, if the landowning farmer provides authorisation, crops grown by tenant farmers can be procured at MSP with the permission of the state government.

 

Earlier, tenant farmers were unable to receive the full benefit of several government schemes. Chouhan said this is now being addressed.

 

According to the National Statistical Office’s (NSO) Situation Assessment of Agricultural Households survey for 2018–19, 17.3 per cent of the total estimated 101.98 million operational holdings in rural India were on leased land.

 

The share of such leased-in lands in the total area used for agricultural production stood at 13 per cent.

 

In previous surveys, the NSO had estimated the share of leased-in holdings at 11.3 per cent and 6.5 per cent, respectively. However, several experts believe these figures are grossly under-estimated, as many tenancy arrangements are oral and undocumented.

 

Chouhan also stated that tenant farmers or share-croppers can now become members of farmer producer organisations (FPOs). He said more than 650,000 tenant farmers had benefited under PMFBY in recent months, while MSP procurement had been extended to around 4.2 million share-croppers.

 

He asserted that several reforms introduced by the government had led to the doubling of income for many farmers.

 

Under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he said, record procurement had been made at MSP, fertilisers were made available at subsidised rates, and insurance claims worth ₹1.83 trillion had been settled.

 

Chouhan also criticised the previous UPA government for rejecting a proposal to implement the Swaminathan Commission’s recommendations, which had called for fixing MSPs by adding a 50 per cent profit margin over the cost of production. 

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