Five measures that may end deadlock over new farm laws
Item
Title
Five measures that may end deadlock over new farm laws
Description
NEW DELHI: With thousands of farmers stepping up pressure on the government to repeal the three new agricultural laws, an SBI report on Monday suggested a five-point strategy to resolve the deadlock. The government had passed three agricultural bills in September with the aim to change the way agricultural produce is marketed, sold and stored across the country. The laws will allow farmers to trade freely without any license or stock limit and lead to increase in availability of buyers for the produce, the report states. However, the farmers fear the laws will lead to the end of the Minimum Support Price (MSP) system and want them to be withdrawn. The SBI Ecowrap report suggests five ways that could end the impasse over the new laws: 1) Provide quantity guarantee instead of priceThe report suggests that the government can insert a quantity guarantee clause for a minimum period of 5 years instead of MSP as a price guarantee. This would ensure that procurement to production percentage of crops is at least equal to last years' percentage except in events like droughts, floods, etc. "Historical procurement trends indicate that only 25 to 35 per cent of total wheat production has been procured over the years, with largest procurement happening through Punjab and Haryana. While, in case of rice, procurement has been in range of 30 to 40 per cent with significant procurement by Telangana, Punjab, Haryana and Kerala," the report noted. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",(function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var e in a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var t=document.getElementById("datawrapper-chart-"+e)
Publisher
The Times of India
Date
2020-12-22
Coverage
Business