The Rice Market and Price Assessment and Advising Working Committee has been assigned the task of suggesting a base price for summer and monsoon paddy to the Steering Committee Protecting Rights and Enhancing Economic Welfare of Farmers, after taking the actual production costs of crops into consideration.
Supply and demand dictate the price of commodities, as is in the case of markets, and moving away from the two parameters would only lead to instability, which can further spread to other sectors.
It is the State’s duty to ensure fair price and equal market share to prevent farmers from being exploited. The law has also made provisions for this.
A price that benefits both farmers and merchants needs to be negotiated at the upcoming meeting, and it needs to be based on genuine production costs.
The working committee will submit suggestions for the base price of rice and standards for purchasing. The steering committee will announce the base price.
We believe that, like in the previous years, a base price which both traders and farmers agree on will be negotiated for rice between the government and traders.
Base prices must be announced every season. The practice globally has been to study the local and foreign market, and make an announcement before the planting season. Depending on the announced base price, peasants and farmers can grow crops that are profitable and beneficial for them.
In our country, too, even if a base price cannot be announced for all crops, it must be announced for main crops like peanut, sesame, and corn, which are widely cultivated by farmers.
The weaknesses and strengths of the announcement of the base price made in the previous years must be studied and reviewed. The government, on its part, must strive towards ensuring that the price does not fall below the base price.
A base price for rice is one of the five essential aims in the farmer’s law, which has made provisions for helping farmers find suitable loans, assistance during production, investment and technology to increase production, suitable prices for their agricultural products in the market, and which protects the rights and interests of farmers who own small plots, and offers support for grievances and losses caused by natural disasters as far as possible.
A base price is a very basic price, and the market price must not fall below it. The work of announcing a base price must be conducted as part of long-term cooperation between the government, traders, and farmers.

GNLM