A separate system and machinery for calculating the cost of agricultural produce in Andhra Pradesh is yet to be created even six years after the bifurcation of A.P. and Telangana, Minister for Agriculture K. Kannababu said.
The Minister, addressing experts at a workshop organised by the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) on the Price Policy of Kharif Crops 2020 of Southern States, said that the practice of calculating common production costs for both States even six years after bifurcation is forcing farmers in Andhra Pradesh, who work under different climatic conditions, to suffer losses.
Responding to Mr. Kannababu, CACP chairman Vijay Pal Sharma said that the matter would be looked into immediately.
Representatives from the southern States of Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka and Telangana participated in the workshop.
Delegates unanimously called for the announcing of Minimum Support Prices (MSPs) for pulses, oilseeds and millets. They also drew the CACP’s attention to the ‘huge disparity’ between the cost of production fixed by the commission and the actual cost of production.
Andhra Pradesh Agriculture Mission vice-chairman M.V.S. Nagi Reddy said that paddy, groundnut and cotton are the major crops in the State. “The MSP of these three major crops, when observed for the past three years, is not in tune with the increasing cost of cultivation,” he said in a presentation.
The MSP was much lower than the cost of production and it was not possible to sustain agriculture at these prices, Mr. Nagi Reddy said. In the past two years, the cost of farm machinery operations has increased by ₹900 per acre in the State, he explained.
Former Agriculture Minister Vadde Sobhanadreeswara Rao and former State Irrigation Board member Yerneni Nagendranath spoke about the need for more realistic support prices.
