New Delhi, July 18
The Union Government has set up a committee to look into issues related to agriculture, including making the Minimum Support Price more effective and transparent, crop diversification and natural farming.
A notification issued by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare stated that as per announcement of the Prime Minister that “a committee will be constituted to promote Zero-budget based farming, to change crop patterns and make MSP more effective and transparent and that the committee will consist of representatives of Central government and state governments, farmers, agriculture scientists and agriculture economists,” a committee is being constituted.
Former Agriculture Secretary Sanjay Agrawal will head the committee which also includes member NITI Aayog (agriculture) Ramesh Chand, national award-winning farmer Bharat Bhushan Tyagi, eight representatives of farmers, two from farmers’ cooperatives, CACP member Naveen P Singh and representatives of centre and state governments.
As many as five farmers’ representatives–Gunwant Patil, Krishnaveer Choudhary, Pramod Kumar Choudhary, Guni Prakash and Sayyed Pasha Patel–have already been named by the government.
The remaining three will be nominated by the Samyukta Kisan Morcha, according to the notification.
An unimpressed farmer leader Yogendra Yadav said: “Here is the much-awaited committee promised by the Prime Minister to the farmers. SKM will take its call, but I find nothing promising in this committee. As my friends from Punjab say, here is a committee to put ‘kam-te-mitti’.”
The notification stated that the committee will hold discussions on suggestions to make available MSP to the farmers by making the system more effective and transparent; suggestions on practicality to give more autonomy to Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) and measures to make it more scientific; to strengthen the agricultural marketing system as per the changing requirements of the country to ensure higher value to the farmers through remunerative prices of their produce by taking advantage of the domestic and the export opportunities.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had on November 19, 2021, while announcing the repeal of the three controversial farm laws that triggered a massive farmer protest at Delhi borders, said that the government will set up a committee to make MSP more effective and transparent as well as suggest ways to promote zero budget natural farming.
Thousands of farmers, especially from Punjab, Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh had staged protests at Delhi borders against the three laws which were repealed but the stalemate continued as they had also sought assurance on other demands like legal guarantee on MSP, compensation to families of farmers who died during the movement and withdrawal of cases against them.
