Budget 2024 Disappoints Farmers, MSP Remains a Dream

The allocation of Rs 1.52 lakh crore to the agriculture sector announced by the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in the Budget 2024 has failed to cut ice with the farming community. The failure to address the key demand of a legal guarantee on minimum support price (MSP) for the agriculture produce has been slammed by the farmer organisations while raising doubts over the various measures announced.

These organisations have termed the budget as a ‘clear drive towards corporatisation of agriculture to maximise profits of predatory agribusinesses’.

The response of the farmer organisations comes in the face of Prime Minister Narendra Modi claiming, “a big focus of this budget is the nation's farmers.”

Modi said that after the world’s biggest grain storage scheme now vegetable production clusters are being introduced which will help both the farmers and the middle class. He emphasised, “It is the need of the hour for India to become self-reliant in the agricultural sector. Therefore, measures have been announced to help farmers increase the production of pulses and oilseeds.”

The Finance Minister announced that the government will release “new 109 high yielding, climate resilient seeds for 32 field and horticulture crops”.

Union agriculture, farmers’ welfare and rural development Shivraj Singh Chouhan said this Budget will establish new dimensions in the progress of rural development and agriculture sector. He claimed that “agricultural research will be comprehensively reviewed to emphasise the development of climate-friendly crops.

“Pulses and oilseeds (mustard, groundnut, sesame, soybean, sunflower) crops will be produced on mission mode. Production, storage and marketing of crops will be strengthened, which will benefit farmers and also increase their income.

“To increase productivity as well as reduce input costs, one crore farmers will be linked to natural farming in the next two years.”

Chouhan claimed that “to increase productivity, reduce input cost and ensure fair prices to farmers; MSP rates are being continuously increased. At least 50% profit on cost is being added to MSP.

“To simplify and strengthen the process of facilities and services being provided to farmers, the government will link the database of farmers with digital land records and get their crops digitally surveyed.” He said that this will help early disbursement of crop loans and easy sale of produce in the market and mandi.

All India Kisan Sabha (AIKS) president Ashok Dhawale and general secretary Vijoo Krishnan stated, “The allocation for agriculture and allied sectors as a percentage of the total budget has been continuously declining from 2019 onwards from 5.44 % to the present 3.15 %.

“When compared to the 2022-23 actual there is a decrease of 21.2 % in allocations for agriculture and allied activities. There is no step to ensure assured procurement of crops at C2+50% (Swaminathan Commission formula), zero increase in allocation for MGNREGA (Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act), PM-KISAN, PMFBY (Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana) over the interim budget.

“The finance minister, while claiming to have given first priority to agriculture, has in reality given first priority to corporates while giving zero priority to the welfare of farmers, workers and the poor.”

Referring to the Finance Minister’s statement that funding will be provided in challenge mode, including to the private sector in the public sector agricultural research institutions, the AIKS has stated that the direction of agricultural research will gradually be decided by the private companies.

The leadership has raised doubts over the proposal for implementation of the Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) in agriculture for coverage of farmers and their lands in three years. They have stated that this should be done after public scrutiny and wide discussion.

“The plan to bring details of six crore farmers and their lands into the farmer and land registries can have very serious implications. Such centralised digital registries are prone to breach of confidentiality, as has been exposed time and again with initiatives such as Aadhar and can open the doors for land grabbing by corporates and other unscrupulous agents,” they said.

They added, “The proposal to undertake a digital crop survey for Kharif using the DPI in 400 districts is also a cause of serious concern. The replacement of crop-cutting experiments with digital and remote-sensing technology have been disadvantageous to farmers, as these are routinely manipulated to serve the interests of insurance companies.

“Government must bring out a white paper on the technology it proposes to use for the digital crop survey, and make public the evidence of it accurately capturing information on crop areas and yields, before the same is implemented on a large scale in the country.”

Doubts have also been raised about the claims on pulses and oilseeds by raising the fact that there has been no provision for assured remunerative prices for these crops to instil confidence in the peasantry.

“In the absence of such policy direction, these tall claims will only remain hollow words. The plan for promotion of large scale clusters for vegetable production and supply chain also can be an effort to bring in corporate contract farming through the backdoor.

“It is required to remain vigilant and peruse the finer policy details. The often-repeated claim of bringing one crore farmers under zero budget natural farming has been made yet again, although no figures of earlier efforts or efficacy of these methods have been given,” the AIKS leaders added.

Meanwhile the All India Kisan Mazdoor Sabha (AIKMS) has raised questions over the government claims on increased MSP. President V. Venkatramaiah and general secretary Ashish Mital said in a statement, “The budget gives no relief to the farmers on MSP, simply claiming that 50% more than gross has already been announced.

“As facts stand, the increase of paddy MSP to Rs 2300/quintal was an increase of only 5.33%, much lower than food inflation which is 10%. It was much below the BJP election promise of Rs 3100/quintal.

“The Modi government has simply run a road roller over farmers' demand for MSP and debt waiver, despite Indian corporates swimming in excess profits and bank interests rising to multiyear high.”

They further added, “The farmers are reeling under heavy debt because of high input cost, poor MSP and even poorer procurement. No relief has been provided even on present GST (goods and services tax) on agriculture inputs which is 18% on fertilisers and 12% on tractors, equipment and spare parts, nor on the high VAT (value added tax) and Excise on fuel.”

Manjeet Dhaner who is the president of Bharatiya Kisan Union-Ekta Dakaunda, said that the central government has completely neglected the agriculture sector and instead of a clear agricultural policy, only talk has been woven.

“Underneath these things, there is a conspiracy to hand over the agriculture sector to corporates,” Dhaner added.

Gurdeep Singh Rampura, a senior functionary of the organisation underlined that “the biggest need of the farmers at the moment is a guaranteed purchase of produce at MSP according to Dr. Swaminathan's formula, along with a debt waiver on loans that the farmers were compelled to take because of the wrong policies of the government. But all these were simply missing from the finance minister’s speech.”

Senior Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) leader Rakesh Tikait in his reaction given to the news agency ANI said, “They (Centre) might find this budget good on the papers but it is not going to benefit the farmers on the ground.

“Companies that will teach organic farming to the farmers are going to benefit from this. Government should pay the price of crops, provide free power, cheap fertilisers, reduce GST on farming equipment…”

Meanwhile Sarwan Singh Pandher of Kisan Mazdoor Sangharsh Committee said that this was the 11th straight time that the farmers have been let down in the budget. He called the budget ‘directionless and visionless’ claiming that it has ignored the farm sector.

The farmers affiliated to the Samyukta Kisan Morcha-Non Political and Kisan Mazdoor Morcha (KMM) had organised a ‘Kisan Mazdoor Rashtriya Sammelan’ in Delhi on Monday that was attended by opposition Members of Parliament. The focus of the exercise was on legal guarantee of MSP.

“The fight for 'MSP Legal Guarantee Act' is on, on the roads and in the Parliament Yesterday, MPs across the non-BJP parties came to meet the farmer leaders and supported the idea of a private member bill on 'MSP Legal Guarantee Law',” a KMM spokesperson said.

Given the position taken by the farmers it can be inferred that the government will have a tough time in the coming days on farm issues, particularly the demand on legal guarantee on MSP and loan waiver.

The Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM) which is an umbrella organisation of various farm bodies across the country has already announced its programme earlier this month to restart the agitation demanding implementation of the agreement dated December 9, 2021, that the Union government had made.

The SKM has already submitted a memorandum of demands to various MPs from July 16 to 18. It has decided to observe August 9 which is the Quit India movement’s anniversary as ‘Corporates Quit India Day’.

The state committees in poll-bound Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand along with Jammu and Kashmir will organise a massive campaign among the farmers based on the SKM’s demands to “expose, oppose and punish Bharatiya Janata Party” in the forthcoming Assembly elections.