In an alternative plan, the farmers' apex body has suggestedintroducing a `procurement price' for cotton, which could be 25 per cent higher than the MSP, as is in vogue for wheat, paddy and even sugarcane.

In case CACP continues to declare the MSP as per the Fair Average Quality (FAQ) standards, AICotton in its just submitted memorandum says, CACP should deviate a little from its earlier practice by announcing `incentives' over and above the MSP. It should be 25 per cent above FAQ MSP for the first grade and 15 per cent above FAQ MSP for the second grade.

The memorandum says: "This is absolutely necessary because there is no provision to reward the farmers for growing better quality cotton, even if it is superior to FAQ standards."

"The quality parameters could be worked out in consultation with Bureau of Indian Standards, Cotton Corporation of India (CCI), East India Cotton Association, Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of Textiles, besides AICotton. The exercise is not very difficult, as there are established norms for assigning quality attributes for better standards."

The apex body's other major suggestion being reiterated for the past few years is for introducing `procurement price' for cotton instead of MSP, which has over the last few years lost relevance because the market prices has remained higher than the support prices. If 1995-96 is taken as the base year, it has been about 25 per cent higher than the MSP.

AICotton strongly feels that such a move would provide an impetus to the farmers, increase the production and provide higher share for institutional purchases. It says that CCI and state cooperative marketing federations could be directed, to organise purchases at the procurement price.

This would also raise the average price for the whole season more or less in alignment with the average price, at which cotton is being bought by the textiles industry.

It has been noticed that the fluctuations in market prices in the recent past, generally do not benefit cotton growers, but help only intermediators, giving an impression to the authorities, that the market prices ruled higher than the MSP.

It says that comparing final prices at the mill delivery point with the support price for cotton bales is not a fair comparison. There should be an exercise to determine what was the price of lint, and only then can its price be compared with the mill delivery price, after adding the cost of handling and transport.

The purpose of MSP, it points out, is to provide remunerative prices to cotton growers. CACP is expected to take care of the increase in wages, inputs and other relevant direct costs.

ost of production has another dimension in the overall deterioration in quality, resulting in lower realisation by the farmers, sometimes beyond their control, such as pest attacks or weather conditions, quality of seeds or pesticides.

It has been noticed that most of the FP bales, for which FAQ standards have been fixed, they do not come up to the FAQ specifications for the specific variety. This results in across the board reduction in prices. The difference for the same variety, sometimes comes to Rs 3,000-Rs 4,000 per candy. The experience shows that the traders take the advantage by offering lower prices for unit value realisation.

AICotton in another major submission asks the CACP to compute the farmers' risk in growing cotton, in rainfed conditions in Gujarat, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh are in debt due to failure of crops. Water management is a major factor in the cost of production and so is pest control.

However, as AICotton in its submission says, the bottomline of the entire exercise is to announce MSP, much before the sowing season to prompt farmers procure the best varieties of seeds and adopt best farming practices.