Fencing farm risks

Ways must be explored to ensure reasonable returns

Even as the international prices of agricultural commodities are ruling high, the freshly harvested summer (kharif) crops in India are selling at below the government-fixed floor prices. The official farm prices data for October indicates that most kharif crops were traded, on average, up to 33 per cent below their respective minimum support prices (MSPs). Cotton and sugarcane were among the only few exceptions. The rates of some oil-bearing crops like groundnut and soybean also tended to look up in recent months, but the trend was blunted by the government by gradually lowering the basic import duty on key vegetable