BUMPER PRODUCTION

 What is Bumper Crop

 Introduction to the crises
 Causes and effects of the same
 Effects on various stakeholders
 Implication on the economy
 Advantages and disadvantages of the same
 Situations in which it is a bane or a boon
 Case study of Lockdown
 Wastage of bumper production in lockdown (supply chain broken)
 Introduction to the topic
 Factors that hinder that make bumper production a bane
 Advantages and disadvantages
 Various stake holders involved
 Impact o economy
 DOES MSP ACTUALLY HELP
Farmers are the worst hit due to the coronavirus lockdown, unable to harvest crops
and sell the harvested produce in the market. The dairy farmers of Assam and
Karnataka; and vegetable, fruit and flower growers of Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra,
Punjab, Haryana and West Bengal have left their produce rotting in fields or
dumped on the roadside. Similar reports continue to pour in from other States as
well. Disruptions in the agricultural supply chain in the aftermath of the nationwide
lockdown has left the farmers with no option but to dump their farm produce.
When agricultural innovations for increasing crop production are being encouraged
on a large scale, why farmers are always left in the lurch at times of bumper
harvest? What are the underlying factors that push the farmers to take such an
extreme step?
Market behaviour
During normal conditions, farmers manage their produce by dividing it between
self-consumption, using it as seeds for future cultivation, selling it at the Minimum
Support Price (MSP) under the procurement schemes or in the Agricultural
Produce Market Committee (APMC) markets. But, the situation changes
significantly when good monsoon results in a bumper harvest. When output
increases by 10 per cent, prices collapse by more than 10 per cent and
consequently the income from the crop for the producer falls.
However, the fall in prices due to bumper harvest is not passed on to the
consumers. Somewhere between the consumer and the producer, the effect of this
fall is absorbed as larger profits by the middlemen. When the farmer has taken all
the efforts, why should someone else reap the fruit, so to speak?
As and when a bumper harvest occurs, large quantities of produce arrive in quick
succession; government agencies are unable procure the excess production as they
are constrained by limited buying capacity. Even in normal conditions, except
paddy and wheat, the level of procurement is abysmally low in other mandated
crops; it’s less than 5 per cent of the production in most pulses and oilseeds.
Vegetable and fruit growers, in particular, have allegedly stated during the ongoing
lockdown that besides transportation and procurement bottlenecks, the absence of
any cold storage and processing facilities has left them with no option but to dump
their produce on the roads. Are we deliberately treating the farmers as mere agents
of production all along?
Lack of technology transfer
The poor state of agricultural marketing in India has been reported by a number of
committees, including the Royal Commission of Agriculture way back in 1928, the
National Commission on Agriculture (1976) and the National Commission on
Farmers (2006). Even today, the share of farmers in consumer’s price is very low
— even under normal market conditions. According to the Dalwai’s Committee on
Doubling of Farmers’ Income, it generally varies only from 15-40 per cent. The
state of the farmers becomes very miserable during a bumper harvest, when they
either dispose the stocks at throwaway price to middlemen or dump it on roads.
Given the fact that the country has state-of-the-art facilities to process fresh fruits
and vegetables, and value addition in the form of chutneys, pickles, jams, juices
and sauces, farmers can definitely make huge fortunes out of the bumper produce.
When there is a separate Ministry for Food Processing and many research institutes
such as the Central Food Technological Research Institute, National Dairy
Research Institute, National Research and Development Centre, then why are no
concerted efforts taken to prevent the farmers from dumping their surplus farm
produce?
The Committee of State Ministers in charge of Agricultural Marketing to Promote
Reforms (2013) had underlined in its report that cold storage units exist in less than
one-tenth of the markets and grading facilities in less than one-third. With these
constraints, how can we manage farm produce both during bumper harvest and a
pandemic like the coronavirus?
The need of the hour is to not only to build high-tech storage facilities, but also to
manage them efficiently. Some estimates point out that harvest and post-harvest
losses account as much as 40 per cent of farm production in India. A mechanism
should be established such that the crops and their condition in the field can be
quickly identified and remedial measures can be implemented. In the absence of
such a mechanism, post-harvest crop losses would continue to remain very high.
Better road connectivity and markets closer to villages also need to be established.
If all States provide their whole-hearted acceptance to the proposed model
Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) Act, 2017, then all markets
can be integrated. This will benefit the farmers immensely as the surplus produce
in one region can be transferred to deficit regions.
Narayanamoorthy is former Member (Official), Commission for Agricultural Cost
and Prices, and Alli is Senior Assistant Professor in Economics, Department of
Social Sciences, Vellore Institute of Technology. Views are personal
INFO COLLECTED ONLINE

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ADHAR ENABLE PAYMENT FRAUD

Factors:
Lack of infrastructure
Price fluctuation
Broken supply chain
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As stated above, we see that the bumper production comes as no good to

the farmers and the people enjoying out of this is intermediaries.
Intermediaries generally illegally hoard quite a high amount of this
produce in hope for better prices in future, thus the prices of good either
remain constant or increase despite bumper production

For the farmers, there is no increase in income, and in some cases, they
are not even capable of covering their production costs. They usually end
in debt traps. To come out of these, they either demand that the
subsidies on production inputs be increased, or their loans be waived,
thus putting a high pressure of the government finance
Farming being a highly unorganized sector, in cases where losses are
incurred by the farmers, they are not able to make landless farmers or
delay their payments, thus putting a high pressure on them
In India, more than 60% percent of the population in employed in the
agriculture sector, but due to such high mismanagement, its contribution
to the GDP remains very low, thus making it hard for India to outgrow
from its reputation as a poor country