Outlook English - Print Subscribers Copy Outlook English, 23 July 2018 | Page 22

GRAIN PAIN
TRIBHUVAN TIWARI
by Lola Nayar
E
Minimal
Support Price
The much-hyped hike in the MSP of 14 crops is too
little and most farmers are unlikely to benefit
UPHORIA. That’s what the Modi
government was hoping for earl­
ier this month when it announced
an “unprecedented hike” in the
minimum support price (MSP) of
14 crops. But it seems to have
proved a damp squib, with farmers’
groups planning a two-day meeting to
chart out their protest plans. The new
MSPs announced on July 4 are based on
a formula to calculate the cost of pro­
duction that differs from the formula
favoured by farmers themselves, and
the increase is being criticised as insuf­
ficient. The government is using the
A2+FL formula, with A2 covering input
costs such as expenditure on fertilisers,
seeds, hired labour, fuel, irrigation etc.,
while FL is the imputed value of unpaid
family labour. The alternative is the
C2+50 per cent formula, where C2 also
takes into account rent on land and int­
erest on capital—t