Unwise counsel

A right to MSPs for farmers is impractical

The suggestion by the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) to make access to minimum support prices (MSPs) of crops a legal right of farmers is not only impractical but also unwise. Despite sizeable expansion in the last six decades, the crop procurement infrastructure has failed to reach out to more than one-third of the producers of a handful of crops in limited areas. Stretching it to all areas and all the 23 crops for which the MSPs are ritually announced annually seems unfeasible. But that does not mean that after pushing up the MSPs to 50 per cent