Farmers Movement Archive

Rice procurement up 18%, as government seeks to calm farmer protests

The Union government has procured 28.6 million tonnes of paddy, the main summer staple, which is 18.6% higher than last year, with Punjab’s share being the highest at nearly 70%, according to the food ministry’s data as on November 17. The government has paid a minimum support price (MSP) value of Rs54,147 crore so far to nearly 2.7 million farmers in key rice-growing states, such as Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, Uttarakhand, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Andhra Pradesh. Punjab alone has contributed over 19.6 million tonnes, which is 69.7% of the total procurement. Last year, till November 17, the government had procured 24.1 million tonnes of paddy. Production of kharif or summer crops this year is likely to be a record 144.5 million tonnes, marginally higher than the 143.4 million tonnes produced during the kharif season of 2019-20, according to an official forecast. Higher output, buoyed by a robust monsoon, is one of the reasons behind higher procurement this year. Also Read: Delhi congress leaders take out tractor yatra against farm lawsThe Union government is on course to buy a record quantity of paddy this year to also blunt the politically sensitive farmers’ agitation against a set of laws enacted to liberalise the agriculture sector. Farmers protesting the laws fear the reforms will erode their bargaining power and lead to a collapse of the procurement system, referring to the government’s assured buying of farm produce at federally fixed prices. The food ministry’s official projections show that the government’s total procurement for summer paddy (2020-21) will touch 74.2 million tonnes, up from 62.7 million tonnes procured during 2019-20, an increase of 18%. The food ministry has expanded its procurement operations for summer-sown crops to cover an estimated 10.5 million paddy growers, against last year’s 10.2 million. The government has also raised the number of paddy-purchase centres by 27%, which now stands at 39,122, up from 30,709 last year. Managing the stock might become difficult owing to higher procurement unless the government offloads more as food grants to the poor, according to Abhishek Agrawal of Comtrade, a commodities trading firm. From April to November 2020, the government has made additional offerings of free food under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY), launched after the Covid-19 outbreak. This has freed up storage capacities of bulging state-held granaries and made way for higher paddy procurement. The total allocation under the PMGKY is 32.1 million tonnes. This included 21.4 million tonnes of rice and 10.6 million tonnes of wheat. Total federally held food stocks as on September 1, 2020, stood at 77.3 million tonnes, up from 71.2 million tonnes on the same date last year.

Hindustan Times

19-11-2020

India