Making farming remunerative

MP's price deficiency mechanism deserves a chance

The Madhya Pradesh government’s new scheme of compensating farmers in cash for their failure to get the minimum support prices (MSP) is a welcome measure. Under this plan, the state will work out a “model price” by looking at past market rates in MP and other states. Subsequently, the farmers will be paid either the MSP or the model price, whichever is higher. This is being done to ensure that farmers do not lose out because it is quite possible that a single all-India MSP may not do justice to the farmers of one region. Though, initially, the scheme will