Farmers protest: Is legal guarantee for MSP the best solution?
minimum support price (MSP) for their produce. The government already provides MSP on agriculture produce but the farmers want a law that guarantees it.
While there are several other demands too, such as implementation of the Swaminathan Committee report and a pension of Rs 10,000 per month for every farmer above 60 years of age, a legal guarantee for MSP is the chief demand. It was also part of nearly a dozen demands farmers had during the earlier protests against the farm laws.
What is Minimum Support Price (MSP)?
MSP is the price at which the government purchases crops from the farmers, providing them with assured income for their produce. This price acts as a safety net for farmers, ensuring they receive a fair price for their crops, particularly during times of market fluctuations or when market prices fall below the MSP. Govt’s MSP assurance was one of the conditions on which farmer groups had withdrawn their year-long agitation on the borders of Delhi in 2020-21.
Paddy and wheat farmers have received nearly Rs 18 lakh crore in the last 10 years as MSP — a 2.5-fold increase from the preceding decade before 2014, President Droupadi Murmu had said last month in her first address to a joint sitting of the two Houses in the new Parliament building. While emphasising the Centre's focus on making farming activities profitable, she said farmers producing oilseeds and pulses have received over Rs 1.25 lakh crore as MSP in the last 10 years of the current government. Previously, the government procurement of
