MINISTER OF AGRICULTURE AND FARMERS WELFARE
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(a) The prices of agricultural produce are determined by supply and demand conditions in the market on a day-to-day basis. Price of agricultural produce tends to fall after the harvesting season due to increase in market arrival of new crop in a lumpy manner. There is no general indication that farmers are getting low prices for their produce. The all India average annual wholesale prices are more or less close to the level of Minimum Support Prices (MSP) for MSP crops. A statement showing all India wholesale prices and MSP of major agricultural crops is given at Annexure.
Government fixes the Minimum Support Prices (MSPs) of 22 mandated agricultural crops and Fair and Remunerative Prices (FRP) for sugarcane based on the recommendations of the Commission for Agricultural Costs & Prices (CACP). These crops cover 99% of agricultural output.
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As announced in the Union Budget 2018-19, the Government has increased the Minimum Support Prices (MSPs) for all mandated Kharif & Rabi Crops and other commercial crops for the season 2018-19 with a return of at least 50 percent over cost of production. Government offers to procure mandated agricultural produce at MSP as well as supports farmers price received in the Mandies through Price Deficiency Payment Scheme on the basis of the proposals received from State Governments concerned. Government is also implementing Market Intervention Scheme (MIS) on the request of the State/UT Government for procurement of agricultural and horticultural commodities, generally perishable in nature, and not covered under the price support scheme for MSP.
(b): In order to provide better marketing facilities to the farmers, the Government has released a new model “The Agricultural Produce and Livestock Marketing (Promotion & Facilitation) Act, 2017” in April 2017 for its adoption by States/ UTs. The model act provides for alternative marketing channels such as setting up of private markets, direct marketing, farmer-consumer markets, special commodity markets, to facilitate farmers in marketing their produce at competitive & remunerative prices.
Further, In order to optimize the use of scarce resources and mitigate the uncertainty in price and marketing, the Government has formulated and released a progressive and facilitative Model Act “The State/ UT Agricultural Produce & Livestock Contract Farming and Services (Promotion & Facilitation) Act, 2018” in May, 2018 for its adoption by the states/Union Territories. The aforesaid Model Contract Farming Act covers the entire value and supply chain from pre-production to post harvest marketing including services contract for the agricultural produce and livestock.
(c): Three reforms are mandatory for States/Union Territories in their respective State Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) Acts for integrating their mandis with e-NAM platform i.e. (i) Provision for e-trading, (ii) Single point levy of market fee, (iii) Unified Single trading license for the State. States without APMC Act need to provide legally enforceable guidelines and institutional mechanism for implementing e-NAM. Based on the proposals received from the compliant States/Union Territories, mandis are considered for integration by Government of India with e-NAM platform. Government of India provides assistance to the States, such as free access to e-NAM platform, financial assistance for computer hardware, electronic weighing scale, assaying equipments and networking. So far, 585 wholesale regulated markets of 16 States and 02 UTs have been integrated with e-NAM platform.
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