‘If we honour Swaminathan with Bharat Ratna…’, economist and daughter Madhura says farmers are not ‘criminals’
MS Swaminathan for whom the Central government had announced the Bharat Ratna award. She was addressing an event organized by the Indian Agricultural Research Institute, Pusa. Citing newspaper reports, the Head of Economic Analysis at the Indian Statistical Institute stated that there are barricades and jails are also being prepared for protesting farmers in Haryana.
She said, "They are farmers, not criminals. We need to talk to our annadatas. We have to find solutions.
In any future strategy we plan, we have to take the farmers with us The adoption of the Swaminathan Committee report has been one of the main demands made by the farmers staging protests. Three factors are used to calculate the production cost or MSP in the five reports that Swaminathan's National Commission on Farmers submitted between December 2004 and December 2006. These three factors are A2 (farmers' out-of-pocket costs include loans for fuel, fertilizers, and land leasing), A2+FL (Value of unpaid labor, including family members and other people's contributions, added to the cost that was paid out), and C2 (Actual cost of production as it includes the A2+FL rate as well as rent and interest paid on the land and equipment that farmers own).
As per Swaminathan's National Commission, the formula to calculate MSP is C2+50% of C2, Business Today reported. Hence, it recommended that the MSP should be at least 50% more than the comprehensive cost of the product. Speaking at the event, MS Swaminathan's other daughter Soumya Swaminathan who is a former WHO chief said he consistently combined anticipatory and participatory research methods, involving those who would be directly impacted by any new studies he conducted.
Read more on livemint.com
