Not only does the Government not reward the farmer for the quality of his wheat crop, its determination of the Minimum Support Price — currently Rs 850, the price at which it buys wheat from farmers — hardly makes it an attractive buyer.

In fact, for quite a while, economists — and several studies — have been clamouring for a rethink of the Government’s MSP strategy saying it was formalised at a different time: when Food Corporation of India’s godowns were overflowing, when wheat production touched a high of 76 million tonnes and farmers, lured by an assured market (read government) switched to rice and wheat especially in Punjab and Haryana.

A lot has changed. Reforms in the law have allowed direct buying by private players which is elbowing out the Government in states like Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. And then there is the simple arithmetic of cost and price.

Ask Jaspal Singh, 54, of Sukhomajra village in Morinda. He isn’t a man given to keeping accounts. But he sure knows one thing. The current MSP of Rs 850 a quintal for wheat will not even get him to break even.

“Why does the government not simply link it to the market index?” asks the farmer who’s waiting for the harvest on his 12 acres.

Ask him to list his inputs per acre, and he unspools a long one. “It’s 40 kg of seed (Rs 1200), a quintal of fertiliser (Rs 920), three bags of urea (Rs 420), 36 litres of diesel for tractor and thresher (Rs 1100), pesticides (Rs 550), water (an inexpensive Rs 100) and labour (Rs 2,000)”, he stops to catch his breath.

... contd.