Paddy procurement at MSP: UP falls short of target, claims farmers prefer open market

LUCKNOW Paddy procurement at the minimum support price (MSP) by the UP government for the current year has fallen significantly short of the target, after the state recorded the lowest-ever wheat procurement in the last 17 years in 2023.

With the procurement process almost concluded, the data sourced from the food and civil supplies department shows that the government acquired only 52.29 lakh metric tonnes (LMT) of paddy, which is not just 75% of the 70 lakh MT target and one of the lowest in the recent years, but also less than the state’s annual rice requirement under the National Food Security Act (NFSA).

UP requires around 60 LMT rice annually to be distributed through the public distribution system (PDS) to beneficiaries under the NFSA and it will have to meet the shortfall of 7 lakh MT of rice through procurement from Food Corporation of India’s godowns in other states.

Additional commissioner (marketing) Rajiv Kumar Mishra attributed the low paddy procurement this year to better price available to farmers in the open market.

“Many farmers, it seems, chose to sell their paddy in the open market rather than sell the same to government agencies because the market rates were either at par or even higher than the MSP of ₹2,183 per quintal fixed by the Centre,” he said.

“Another reason may be that this year a large number of farmers grew short grain rice in several districts and the price of this variety of rice was especially higher than the MSP,” Mishra added.

Around 8 lakh of more than 10.45 lakh farmers, who registered themselves with the food and civil supplies department, sold their paddy to the government that had set up 5,207 purchase centres across the state. The government disbursed more than ₹10,000 crore to farmers’ accounts as MSP.

The paddy procurement was 65.50 LMT in 2022-23, 65.53 lakh LMT in 2021-22 and 66.84 LMT in 2020-21. Though this year the procurement is less at only 52.29 LMT, it is still higher than what it used to be six-seven years ago.

“After coming to power in 2017, the Yogi Adityanath government began aggressive procurement of wheat and paddy from farmers against the revised targets unlike in previous years when the procurement of both wheat and paddy was quite low and far away from the targets,” said another official.

Both MSP and paddy procurement have risen manifold in the last decade. paddy MSP in 2013-14, for example, was only ₹1,310 per quintal and procurement was merely 9.07 LMT against the target 25 LMT.

It is believed that many farmers, especially the small ones, often prefer to sell their produce to private merchants, even if they get lower price than the MSP to avoid inconvenience and cost involved in transporting their produce to government procurement centres, where they face many other issues including corruption.

“A better market price could only be a small reason for some farmers to sell their produce to private agents. Defects in government procurement chain are the main reason to discourage farmers from availing MSP by selling wheat or paddy to government procurement centres,” the official pointed out.