'Although inadequate, increase in Minimum Support Price is welcome'

Promises to double farmers' income by 2022 will only be meaningful if they are supported by structural changes in agriculture

Under pressure from farmers’ groups across the country due to falling prices and a glut of produce, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance government announced a hike in the minimum support prices (MSP) of kharif (monsoon) season crops in July 2018. It claimed this was a “historic decision for farmers”.

However, the new MSPs do not meet the recommendations made by the M.S. Swaminathan-chaired national commission on farmers that suggested a ‘C2+50%’ formula to calculate MSPs–50% more than the weighted average cost of production, which includes the imputed cost of capital and rent for land cultivated, even self-owned land–which