“The main reason for farmers’ protests is lower market price of agriculture produce, which can be checked regularly by an expert committee,” said the official, who is part of a group looking into farmers’ protests.Legalising MSP may impact the production of crops, potentially threatening India’s food security, the official said. “MSP is primarily based on demand and supply situation, global and domestic price trends, and consumer impact. It is not feasible to increase grain prices that neither suit our domestic nor global consumers. It may backfire just like in Maharashtra where government made it mandatory to sell produce not below MSP and then crops start rotting without buyers.” The government’s thinking is based on the recent research done by NITI Aayog member Ramesh Chand and co-author Jaspal Singh, who underlined that the production of non-MSP agriculture products has doubled compared to MSP products in last two decades. “Crops covered under MSP experienced less than half of the growth in output of non-MSP crops. Even in the absence of price support, horticulture crops showed about 4% growth in output,” the paper said.
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