A decade of flip-flops on farmers’ issues despite full-majority government

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₹96,703 in 2015-16 to ₹2.71 lakh by 2022-23, targeting a 14.1% compound annual growth rate. However, a National Sample Survey report for 2018-19 showed farmer incomes averaging only ₹1.23 lakh, far from the target.

Slow growth in the early years of the timeframe meant that the required run rate for the remaining period had inched up to 18.6% per year by then, Mint calculations show. This would have needed an ambitious push for reforms and policies.

In February 2019, despite the interim nature of the pre-election Budget, the government found a way to introduce the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN), which guaranteed income support of ₹6,000 per year for all land-holding farmer families. The scheme has helped, but its allocation has not seen any increase over the years despite high inflation eating into purchasing power, especially in rural areas.

The Centre also tried to help farmers by sharply increasing the MSP for key crops in 2018-19, but there has not been much movement since. Worse, less than half of the farmers are aware of the MSP promise and even fewer sell their produce to the procurement agencies that buy at MSP.

Besides, the demand for a legal mandate for MSPs, or even the opposition to the farm laws, which had promised a free-market-like mechanism, may have emerged from distrust in the government due to its “ad hoc" responses to instances of price rise, when farmers could potentially make profits. “The issue is, the government, even when the (farm laws) ordinance was in effect, imposed export ban on onions and a couple of other commodities, just because there was an expectation that prices would rise," said Avinash Kishore, senior research fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute.