Tag: agriculturalproduce

Despite Adityanath’s Tall Claims, RTI Shows UP Has Procured Only 11% of Its Pulses Target

The chief minister claimed that the procurement this year was 16 times higher than the previous, meaning the state’s earlier procurement was abysmally low.

New Delhi/Jaipur: During a video conference with the Union agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar on August 27, the Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath claimed that the procurement of pulses in the state this year was 16 times higher than that of the previous year.

Adityanath said that due to his government’s prompt response, the farmers in Uttar Pradesh didn’t face any difficulties during the COVID-19 lockdown and subsequent unlock phases.

He further added that 5,953 procurement centres had been opened up for the purchase of Rabi 2019-20 crops and 45 agricultural commodities were exempted from mandi charges which enabled the farmers to receive good prices for their produce, thereby helping them improve their income.

However, an RTI filed by The Wire with the Union Ministry of Agriculture Cooperation and Farmers Welfare provides an alarming insight into Adityanath’s claims.

The RTI data reveals that the Uttar Pradesh government’s procurement under the Price Support Scheme (PSS) for pulses in the Rabi 2019-20 season was only 11.38% of its target. If the chief minister claims that the procurement this year was 16 times higher than the previous, then the state’s earlier procurement was abysmally low.

The procurement target for pulses – gram, masoor, urad and moong – which is calculated as 25% of a particular crop’s actual production in the state, was set at a total of 3.38 lakh metric tonnes in UP for the year 2020, but the state government procured only 38.49 thousand metric tonnes across the state.

Also read: 80% of Farmers’ Crop Insurance Claims Unpaid Past Payment Deadline

In fact, the pulses and oilseeds procurement target submitted by the UP government to the Union government under the price support scheme was far below the 25% goal.

The Wire has accessed a letter written by the principal secretary of the Uttar Pradesh agriculture department Devesh Chaturvedi to the Union agriculture ministry, in which he highlighted that the market price of masoor and mustard across the state was below the minimum support price (MSP).

The market price of masoor and mustard was Rs 4,069 per quintal and Rs 4,088 per quintal respectively, which was not consistent with the MSP of Rs 4,800 per quintal and Rs 4,425 per quintal respectively.

Only for gram, Chaturvedi said that the market price (Rs 5,030 per quintal) was higher than its MSP (Rs 4,875 per quintal).

Pointing out the market price and MSP of these crops, Chaturvedi added that the government was expected to procure 1.4 lakh metric tonnes of gram, 0.80 lakh metric tonnes of masoor and 1.80 lakh metric tonnes of mustard across the state in Rabi 2019-20 under the PSS – with the aim to strike a competition in the market so that the market prices of these crops don’t fall below the MSP and the farmers are immune from losses.

A woman harvest pulses in a field in Danapur, Bihar. Photo: IFPRI/Flickr, CC BY 2.0

However, this procurement target, set by the state government, was below even the 25% procurement limit, which stands at 2.01 lakh metric tonnes for gram, 1.21 lakh metric tonnes for Masoor and 2.48 lakh metric tonnes for Mustard.

According to the data provided in the RTI, the state government has procured only 38,498.18 metric tonnes of gram against its target of 2.01 lakh metric tonnes, 0.20 metric tonnes of masoor (red lentils) against its 1.21 lakh metric tonnes target, and mere 319.20 metric tonnes of mustard against its target of 2.64 lakh metric tonnes.

While the state government had not set any target for sunflower, urad and moong, the Union government had set their target at 340 metric tonnes, 9,040 metric tonnes and 6,880 metric tonnes respectively. Despite this, the UP government didn’t procure any of these crops at all.

In total, the UP government had a target to procure a total of 6.02 lakh metric tonnes of pulses and oilseeds in Rabi 2019-20, but it procured only 38.82 thousand metric tonnes. This was a mere 6.43% of its target.

Also read: ‘Agriculture and Atmanirbharta’ Is a Noble Vision, but Needs Hard Decisions and Political Consensus

The state authorities have admitted to the low procurement of pulses and oilseeds this year. However, they have justified it on grounds of the high market prices prevalent during the procurement period.

Speaking to The Wire, Devesh Chaturvedi, principal secretary (agriculture), who had authored the letter to the Union agriculture ministry for state intervention into procurement operations of pulses and oilseeds, said, “The main purpose of this scheme [PSS] is to maintain the price of agricultural commodities, not procurement. The market price of gram, mustard and masoor was higher than the MSP because of which the procurement this time is low.”

Upon being asked why the market price of masoor and mustard was shown to be below the MSP in his letter to the Union agriculture ministry, Chaturvedi replied, “The market price was higher than the MSP throughout the year.”

Farmers’ response

In Uttar Pradesh, gram, masoor and mustard are mostly cultivated in the regions of Bundelkhand and Agra. Farmers in these regions have denied the government’s claim that the market price of pulses and oilseeds were higher than the MSP.

They said that in the absence of state support through its procurement at minimum support price (MSP), the market prices had witnessed a sharp fall this year.

“There was no procurement centre set up in our village this year because of which we had to sell our produce to private traders at low prices,” Dolat Singh, a farmer from Bhojaka village situated along the Bundelkhand border in Uttar Pradesh, told The Wire over the phone.

Singh has sold about 10 quintals of his Mustard at a price of Rs 3,500 per quintal at the mandi against the minimum support price was Rs 4,425 per quintal, suffering a total loss of Rs 9,250 on his Mustard produce.

Pushpendra Singh, leader of the Kisan Shakti Sangh in UP, said that due to lack of a sufficient number of procurement centers, the government purchase of pulses and oilseeds was very low.

Also read: Soaring Pulses: Is the Spike in Retail Price of Moong in 2020 a Cause for Concern?

“Market price remains around Rs 1000-1500 less than MSP. The report of the Shanta Kumar Committee clearly states that only 6% of the farmers in the country get MSP, and that too only for wheat and paddy. The government’s attitude towards pulses and oilseeds farmers is very disappointing,” he said.

Singh also said that due to the lack of procurement on MSP, farmers were deciding not to grow other crops, and were focusing only on paddy and wheat.

The farmers’ claims were also confirmed via data from Agmarknet, a Union agriculture ministry portal which provides information about the price and arrival of the agriculture produce. It showed that the average market price of mustard in the state was Rs 3,908.13 per quintal in April, Rs 3,988.03 per quintal in May; all below the MSP.

Income loss due to a fall in market prices was not the only issue faced by farmers in Uttar Pradesh. Cattle menace was also leading to significant losses for the farmers.

“Hungry stray cattle enter our fields and eat gram, masoor and urad crops. They, however, leave aside the Mustard crop as its seed tastes sour to them,” said Ratan Singh, another farmer from Nagla Madari village in Uttar Pradesh.

He added that the cattle menace had forced farmers to reduce gram and masoor cultivation, which they chose to grow solely as per their domestic requirements.

Rajasthan Procured 7 Lakh Tonne Less Mustard Than Target as Market Price Slipped Below MSP: RTI

An RTI filed by The Wire revealed that the government’s mustard procurement under the Price Support Scheme (PSS) for oilseeds this year is about 66% less than its target.

New Delhi/Jaipur: When online registration for crop procurement in Rajasthan resumed in May after a month-long suspension, Manoj Kumar immediately registered himself.

Kumar, a farmer from Ramgarh village in Rajasthan’s Nohar, was allotted the date May 15 when a government agency would purchase 25 quintals of mustard and 15 quintals of gram from him at the minimum support price (MSP).

Manoj Kumar, a farmer from Ramgarh village in Nohar, holding his registration form for state procurement. Photo: The Wire

Two days before the date allotted to him, the procurement centre was suddenly shut down with no reason provided for the same.

Kumar kept his produce at home for a month, waiting for the procurement centre to reopen. Then, he sold his produce to a local trader at a price that was far below the MSP. “The local trader paid me Rs 3,800 per quintal for gram and Rs 3,600 per quintal for mustard,” Kumar told The Wire over the phone.

The MSP for gram and mustard is Rs 4,875 per quintal and Rs 4,425 per quintal respectively. By selling at a low market price, Kumar suffered a total loss of Rs 85,125.

“I was aware about the loss but I had no other option available. I had to repay a lot of people and it couldn’t be postponed,” he said.

The state shuts its procurement operations only when it has procured the required amount of the agricultural commodity. However, the Rajasthan government terminated its mustard procurement even though it hadn’t met its target.

An RTI filed by The Wire with the Union Ministry of Agriculture, Cooperation and Farmers Welfare has revealed that the Rajasthan government’s mustard procurement under the Price Support Scheme (PSS) for oilseeds this year is about 66% less than its target.

The procurement target for mustard, which is calculated as 25% of a particular crop’s actual production in the state, was set at 10,46,500 metric tonnes for the year 2020. However, the Rajasthan state co-operative Marketing Federation Limited (RAJFED), an apex state agency that deals in procurement, procured only 3,45,682.46 metric tonnes of mustard across the state.

According to the Commission for Agriculture Costs and Prices (CACP), a ministry of agriculture, cooperation and farmers welfare’s body that proposes the MSP every year, Rajasthan is the highest mustard producing state with a share of 44.3% of the total production in the country.

Also read: Rajasthan: Crop Procurement Portal ‘Suspended’ Amidst Lockdown, Rates Fall Below MSP

Government intervention in the form of procurement of agricultural commodities is necessary to maintain fair prices in the market.

According to the data provided in the RTI, about 3,20,444 farmers in the state had registered themselves with the government portal to sell their mustard produce to RAJFED, but the ultimate beneficiaries of the procurement operations were only 1,38,506 farmers and about 1,81,938 farmers were excluded from seeking benefits of procurement.

The state authorities, however, said that this huge gap was actually reflective of the profit that farmers had made outside the government procurement scheme, implying that the market price of mustard in Rajasthan was higher than the minimum support price (MSP) set by the government.

Speaking to The Wire, managing director of RAJFED Sushma Arora said, “The scheme is meant to support the farmers but ultimately it works according to the market forces. This time, the market price for Mustard was higher than the MSP because of which the farmers themselves didn’t turn up for state procurement.”

However, farmers in Rajasthan have denied the government’s claim. They have said that the market price of mustard this year was lower than the MSP.

“Out of the approximate 40 lakh metric tonnes of mustard production in Rajasthan, Sri Ganganagar alone produces about 10 lakh metric tonnes, which is the government’s procurement limit from all over Rajasthan,” said Anil Godara, a farmer from Mirjewala village in Sri Ganganagar.

“Since private traders know that the government cannot cater to all farmers, they put up a price lower than the MSP. This time, the mustard rate was between Rs 3,600 and Rs 3,900 per quintal,” he added.

Godara’s statement corroborates with data from the Agmarknet which shows that the average monthly wholesale price of Mustard in most of the mandis in the district of Sri Ganganagar in the month of May and April was between Rs 3,392.85 and Rs 3,993.05 per quintal.

Also read: After MP’s Bumper Wheat Procurement, Storage and State Finance Challenges Lie Ahead

Interestingly, in February this year the principal secretary, Department of Cooperation in Rajasthan had written a letter to the joint secretary, Department of Agriculture and Cooperation of the Union government proposing the implementation of a price support scheme (PSS) for mustard, a copy of which was seen by The Wire.

He had mentioned that the ruling market price of mustard ranges from Rs 3,000 to Rs 3,967 per quintal in Rajasthan while the MSP is Rs 4,425 per quintal.

He stated that the expected production of mustard in the state would be 39.53 lakh metric tonnes and accordingly, the expected procurement would be 9.88 lakh metric tonnes.

A woman works in a field of mustard. Credit: Reuters

A woman works in a field of mustard plants. Photo: Reuters

The godown capacity for storing the procured agricultural commodities was proposed to be 1,23,823 which included 1,04,953 warehouses under the Rajasthan State Warehousing Corporation and 18,900 under the Central Warehousing Corporation. Additionally, 165 APMCs (Agricultural Produce Market Committees) were also included to use their godown facility.

Kunji Lal Meena, the principal secretary of the Rajasthan cooperation department, who authored the letter, told The Wire, “The market price was low in February [when the proposal was made] but it went ahead of the MSP during the procurement period (March to June) which is why the procurement of mustard is low. In gram, we have successfully procured according to the sanctioned limit,” he said.

While both Meena and Arora had claimed that the market price of Mustard in Rajasthan was higher than the MSP, data by Agmarknet, a Union agriculture ministry portal which provides information about the price and arrival of the agriculture produce, shows that the average market price of mustard in the state was Rs 3,805.3 per quintal in April, Rs 4,073.65 per quintal in May, and Rs 4,318.01 in June; all below the MSP.

The RTI further highlighted that the target for masoor was 8,380 metric tonnes. However, the state didn’t procure it at all.

Regarding the absence of procurement for Masoor, Arora said, “There is hardly any Masoor grown in the state.”

Also read: Amid Lockdown, UP Centres Procuring Grains From Fewer than 2 Farmers a Day on Average

Speaking to The Wire, some farmers said that they didn’t sell their produce to government agencies this time because they would take months to process their payment and, given the uncertainty arising from COVID-19-induced circumstances, farmers had decided against waiting.

“I sold Mustard at Rs 3,200 per quintal, which is about Rs 1,225 less than the MSP,” Sonu Kumar, a farmer from Jorawarpura village in Rajasthan’s Kota told The Wire over the phone. “Agricultural income is my only source of income. There are several expenses to be met, especially after the harvest, and this time, with a serious health crisis around, it was even more important to have some money at hand.”

“Last year, it took over three to four months to get the price money after selling our produce to the government agency. This time it would not have been intelligent to wait,” he added.