The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has approved the increase in the minimum support prices (MSP) for all mandated kharif crops for marketing season 2022-23.
The MSP increase for kharif crops is aimed at ensuring remunerative prices to the growers for their produce and encouraging crop diversification, according to an official statement released on PIB portal.
“The increase in MSP for kharif crops is in line with the Union Budget 2018-19 announcement of fixing the MSP at a level of at least 50 percent over the all-India weighted average cost of production, aiming at reasonably fair remuneration for the farmers,” it said.
It is notable that, return over MSP for bajra, tur, urad sunflower seed, soybean and ground-nut is more than 50 percent over the all-India weighted average cost of production at 85 per-cent, 60 percent, 59 percent, 56 percent , 53 percent and 51 percent, respectively.
Concerted efforts have been made over the last few years to realign the MSP in favour of oilseeds, pulses and coarse cereals to encourage farmers to shift larger area under these crops and adopt best technologies and farm practices, to correct demand – supply imbalance, the government said.
As per 3rd Advance Estimates for 2021-22, production of foodgrains in the country is estimated at record 314.51 million tonnes which is higher by 3.77 million tonnes than the production of food-grain during 2020-21. The production during 2021-22 is higher by 23.80 million tonnes than the previous five years’ (2016-17 to 2020-21) average production of foodgrains.
MSP is the price at which government agencies procure select crops from farmers to shield them from price volatilities.
