Tariff changes fail to lift mandi prices of pulses, oilseeds

Tariff policy changes take three to six months to show results on the ground

Though the government has taken a series of measures since late August to push up prices of agricultural commodities, this hasn't yielded much on the ground.

The price of soybean seed and groundnut seed, for instance, grown during the Kharif season, and of mustard, planted in the rabi season, has remained below or barely at the government's Minimum Support Price (MSP) since September.

According to data sourced from agmarket.nic.in, barring masur (red lentil), the prices of most Kharif and rabi pulses -- moong (green gram), chana (Bengal gram), urad (black gram) or tur -- have stayed below the MSP.

In the case of