MS Swaminathan Says Budget Has Lot of 'Good Beginnings' for Farmers, But Questions Remain

New Delhi: MS Swaminathan, the father of India's Green Revolution, analysing this government’s last full budget that was aimed in a large part towards assuaging farm distress, said that there was a lot of confusion about some of the promises made in the budget.

On being asked about Jaitley’s promise to offer farmers a Minimum Support Price (MSP) that will be 1.5 times of the production cost for their Kharif crops, he said it was “a good beginning” but there were several unanswered questions about the implementation.

“There are a lot of questions about procurement that still remain unanswered. The procurement is done on the ground by state governments. So exactly how will the prices of procurement be fixed for various crops by different state governments is something that we will have to wait and watch,” Swaminathan said.

Reacting on Jaitley’s promise to connect all the mandis electronically, to cut down on middlemen and provide better prices to farmers, by March this year, Swaminathan said in a country where more than 50% people are semi-literate, such schemes will only provide limited benefits.

“To help farmers fully avail the benefits under government’s e-NAM project, the government will also have to provide a large scale training program to farmers, most of whom may not be aware of the technology and how to use it. While this is a good scheme in principle, it requires a huge effort by the government to work on the sides.”

Swaminathan also spoke about some of the other schemes announced by the government like promoting cluster farming, a practice by which farmers with smaller holdings collaborate to farm on a bigger and more profitable scheme. He said that the scheme was “a good beginning but he will have to read the fine print before commenting on it.”

He also said that other initiatives by the government, say, providing Rs 10,000 crore each to animal husbandry and fisheries and investing in food processing units were schemes founded on sound principles but exactly how the government was working to implement them remains to be seen.