In a speech in February last year Arvind Panagariya, the vice chairman of NITI Aayog had expressed rather radical ideas of reform for agriculture sector. Will they be too hot for the PM? This is second part of a multi-part series
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2.In my place in AP where productivity is high its not affluent who benefit from MSP rather its poor. We never ever sold it to govts. We always sold it to pvt millers by waiting till the price gets higher. This is possible only because we have our own godown worth 50k(just construction cost) that can hold 400 bags of rice. 1400 was the MSP but we always sell it around 1800-2000.
3.Poor on the other hand dont have storage facility to prevent rotting, Need immediate money and hence he is bound to sell as soon as paddy arises but that is a huge supply time and hence low market prices infact less than MSP. He always tend to go to govt procurement centers.
4.I beg panagariya to stay in villages for a year atleast to understand the dynamics. How is Deficiency payments implementable in india? the price in the market varies day by day like NIFTY. How can we set a threshold even if it is a range rather than a absolute number? Costs like transport etc varies highly region to region and all these are to be considered. Despite doing all this our society contains remnants of feudalism where marginal farmers are still depending on medium-large farmers. We need overhaul of criminal justice system, Istitutionalised credit fecilities etc first and then we can talk about deficiency payments.
5. we can say that we should first start and then rectify in the process but that logic doesnt hold when many lives are at stake. Piloting a cash tarnsfer for LPG is ok but not MSP kind of things.
6.Coming to lease i agree that lot of laws need to be reviewed but its not merely legality that prevents many urban migrating families to lease land to farmers back home. Its rather the kabja once given and associated yrs of court roaming that fears the land holders. So we are back to square one where criminal justice system reform is to be the prelude.
GM seeds are too expensive and can be devastating for the farming community due to the many issues related to the damage and disease. GM seeds would mean a sell out in a way to enslave India on Food. Similar to a ploy that was tried on India and china way back in 1960's by trying to wipe out Asia's Rice Crop due to a specific disease developed that would have wiped out rice. That failed. It was on the agenda and is suspected to be recycled again in the form of technology.
Niti Aayog should stay away from GM seeds. We will only trust our indigenous methods for our food security.