Sugarcane cultivators in the district staged a demonstration here today against the Union government for fixing Rs.2,300 per tonne as the Fair and Remunerative Price (FRP) for the 2016-17 season.
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The agitation spearheaded by the State Sugarcane Cultivators Association said the FRP was Rs.788 below the actual cost of production and hence was ‘anti-farmer’ in nature. The protest was part of a State-wide agitation by the Association and organised in front of the office of Mysuru MP Pratap Simha of the BJP.
Association president Kurubur Shanthakumar said the cost of cultivating one tonne of sugarcane was Rs.3,088 while the Centre has fixed the FRP for the year 2016-17 at Rs.2,300 per tonne which was the same as the FRP fixed for 2015-16.
Describing the move as a betrayal of farmers’ interest, he said the BJP had promised in the run-up to the Parliamentary elections in 2014 that it would implement the recommendations of the Dr. Swaminathan Committee that the FRP would be one-and-a- half times the cost of production to give succour to farmers. “But it has fixed a FRP which is below the cost of production and amounts to betraying the farmers’ interest”, he said.
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The agitating farmers argued that the Commission for Agricultural Costs & Prices (CACP), whose mandate is to recommend the minimum support price, was full of government officials with no knowledge of agricultural issues and problems plaguing the cultivators and hence the commission should be disbanded immediately. “At least 50 per cent of the officials of the CACP should comprise farmers’’, said Mr. Shanthakumar who demanded that the FRP should at least match the cultivation cost if not more.