BENGALURU: The Karnataka Agricultural Price Commission (KAPC), which acts as a facilitator between the State Government and farmers by playing an important role in fixing the Minimum Support Price (MSP), has been headless for the last two and a half years.
The commission works with all four agricultural universities and horticultural university to make recommendations to the State Government in fixing MSP.
The universities study the cost of cultivation on selected plots of farmers and recommend to the government the MSP. The commission submits its recommendations to the State Government which in turn submits it to the Union Government. It is decided based on the MS Swaminathan Formula.
At present, the commission is headed by Karnataka Agriculture Minister N Chaluvarayaswamy. Experts, however, opine that the chairman’s responsibility is a full-time job.
“For some time, the responsibility was given to the Agriculture Commissioner. Now, the minister is heading it. Given the responsibilities of these two, it may not be possible for them to take the functions of the commission seriously. The officials are meeting on MSP and fixing it. But without KAPC representation, there will be no voice of the farmers in the process,” said informed sources from the Agriculture Department.
Speaking to The New Indian Express, former chairman of the commission Hanumanagouda Belagurki said, “We need a full-fledged person to head this commission. The cost of cultivation will be done by the agriculture universities... they take up surveys and calculate how much a farmer has spent on seeds, manure, and fertilizers, and based on that, the price is recommended. Once it is ready, it is submitted to the State government which will in turn submit it to the Centre.”
The Karnataka Agricultural Price Commission was constituted in 2014. It gives recommendations to the State Government on crop production, cultivation cost, transportation, and crop insurance. Prakash Kammaradi was the chairperson between 2014 and 2019, and from 2019 to 2022, it was Hanumanagouda.
Sources from the department also said it’s not just the chairman; the KAPC also does not have sufficient technical staff. “On one side, the government wants to double farmers’ income, and on the other side, with no full-fledged chairman and staff, KAPC has become a namesake commission,” said an official.