The authorities should procure paddy from small and marginal farmers as a option to handle surplus rice shares in state warehouses, a fee has advisable in its report concerning the 2022-23 kharif season.
Procurement from different farmers could possibly be restricted to surplus from two hectares of land, stated the Commission for Agriculture Costs and Prices (CACP) in its newest value coverage report. “This would entail enough shares for sustaining meals safety and defend the curiosity of greater than 90 per cent of farmers,” it stated.
The suggestions, if adopted, may deliver a few dramatic change within the method during which meals grains are procured within the nation and eradicate the necessity for big subsidies to take care of and procure surplus grain shares in central warehouses.
It may affect paddy procurement of many giant farmers in Punjab and Haryana, the place the common farm land holding measurement is 3.62 and a pair of.22 hectares respectively as per the 2015-16 census as towards the nationwide common of 1.08 hectares.
Paddy procurement for the Central pool has risen by nearly 76 per cent between 2015-16 and 2020-21 seasons from 51.02 million tonnes to 89.56 million tonnes.
The Commission, for an extended, has advocated ending open-ended procurement within the nation to handle meals shares and subsidies, however maybe for the primary time, it has laid down a path to attain that.
According to the 2015-16 agricultural census, small and marginal farmers who personal lower than two hectares of land represent 86 per cent of the overall landholding within the nation.
But, when it got here to operational holdings, the small and marginal farmers had a share of round 47 per cent.
In distinction, although the semi-medium, medium and huge farmers constituted round 14 per cent of whole landholding within the nation, that they had a share of just about 53 per cent within the operational holding.
The agriculture census defines an operational holding as all land which is used wholly or partly for agricultural manufacturing.
“The suggestions on capping paddy procurement to just small and marginal farmers looks good on paper but could be difficult to implement because medium and large farmers also need remunerative prices. Secondly, in case of small and marginal farmers their marketable surplus of produce is always less. Also it will be difficult to keep the big farmers quiet,” Dr S Mahendra Dev, director of IGIDR and a former chairman of CACP, informed Business Standard.
The CACP additionally stated that cereals procurement should be capped until what is required for clean operating of PDS, Other Welfare Schemes (OWS) and buffer shares whereas concurrently farmers should even be inspired to develop much less of paddy and extra oilseeds and pulses.
“The Commission suggests exploring suitable variants of price deficiency payment schemes to compensate cereal farmers for not growing rice and wheat,” the report stated. It additionally advocated commerce coverage and value assist coverage to work in tandem with one another.
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