We congratulate the farmers on their hard earned victory. After a long drawn epic struggle, the farmers compelled the govt to capitulate and announce withdrawal of the 3 contentious farm laws -- a historic victory by any reckoning. However the farmers have some more unfinished business, chief of which being the Minimum Support Price (MSP).
While MSP is justified, farmers must realize that their best interest lies in switching to more remunerative crops. For instance we produce more than our requirement of rice and wheat. Add to that the fact that we have considerable buffer stock of these grains. Hence the market price keeps dropping below the cost of production, leading to a demand for higher MSP. To remedy this situation farmers should cultivate other crops too.India is the world's biggest importer of edible oils. We import 65% of our edible oils, mainly palm and soyabean besides several others. But palm and soya oil make up about 70% of our edible oil imports. Our farmers must seriously think about setting aside a small percentage of their acreage for growing these remunerative edible oil seeds.
