The demand for minimum support price (MSP) for agriculture products rocked the first two days proceedings of the Andhra Pradesh Assembly last week. Even as the Opposition stepped up its demand for implementation of the MS Swaminathan Committee?s recommendations on the pricing policy, Telugu Desam Party (TDP) president, N Chandrababu Naidu, wanted the government to give a fair look to other commercial corps that had not been getting MSP, like turmeric, chillies, castor, coconuts etc.
Speaking to FE, a senior TDP leader said his party would demand revision of the entire agriculture products pricing policy, including that for other commercial crops. The present and earlier governments encouraged farmers to move to alternative crops like turmeric, castor etc, from paddy due to scarcity of irrigation water, a farmer-turned-politician from Nizamabad said. He said the farmers who switched to alternative crops are now facing the vagaries of market fluctuation.
The entire Opposition, led by Chandrababu Naidu, staged demonstrations on the first day of the winter session, forcing the government to come up with a short discussion on the subject on the second day.
In a statement placed on the House?s table, agriculture minister N Raghuveera Reddy said the prices fixed by the Commission for Agriculture Costs & Prices (CACP) could not provide remunerative prices to farmers for their produce in a manner that would provide them a respectable standard of living. The government had, therefore, requested the Centre to fix higher MSPs for all major crops.
Reddy said the state government had taken various steps, like free power, irrigation projects, insurance cover, seed subsidy, reduction in the interest rates, etc. ?But even after these steps, the government felt there should be a further increase in the net income of farmers, hence the MSP for various crops, as recommended by MS Swaminathan, should be increased,? Reddy said.
Officials said MSP for other crops should be increased as the area for other crops had increased over the years. ?Only increasing the MSP of paddy is not sufficient as the production of other crops like turmeric, coconut, chillies etc, is increasing,? officials said.