The Union agriculture ministry is in talks with the food processing industries ministry to take over a scheme aimed for the integrated development of the tomato, onion and potato (TOP) value chain, a government official aware of the matter said.
The TOP scheme is part of Operation Greens, announced for 22 crops in the FY19 Union Budget. If finalized, the agriculture ministry will be able to support growers by purchasing these three perishable crops when their prices crash.
“Operation Greens did not really work out. The food processing industries ministry has not been able to operate the scheme effectively. Things are almost nil, especially for TOP crops. The food processing industries ministry is in discussion with the ministry of agriculture," a government official aware of the matter said. “The food processing industries ministry keeps saying that TOP scheme is not amended; and given that the agriculture ministry has the market intervention scheme (MIS), the food processing industries ministry is trying to give away the TOP scheme to the agriculture ministry to implement it more effectively."
“The agriculture ministry has not refused to take it over. They are examining taking over the TOP scheme for its better implementation. However, the discussions are still at the initial stage between officials of both ministries," the official added.
The agriculture ministry’s MIS is meant for market intervention when market prices of a commodity that is not covered by minimum support prices (MSP) crash. The ministry currently procures cereals, pulses and oilseeds at the government-announced MSP; however, there is no concept of government procurement at MSP for vegetables. Expenses for the MIS operation are equally shared by the agriculture ministry and the state government.
“The state government will fix some procurement price (if the policy decision is finalized) at which they will procure these three vegetables from farmers and later dispose them of, as these horticulture crops cannot be stocked for a long period because of their perishable nature," the official shared.
The consumer affairs ministry has a similar scheme named price stabilisation fund (PSF) under which it intervenes in the markets of pulses and vegetables, specifically tomato, onion and potato to bring down market prices when their prices pick up the upward trend.
Queries sent to the ministries of food processing, agriculture and consumer affairs ministries on Monday remained unanswered till press time.
Horticulture growers forced to discard vegetables when prices crash may get some relief if the agriculture ministry steps in, similar to how to it procures crops to support farmers and arrest falling prices.
Recently, farmers in Punjab were seen dumping capsicum as market prices were not enough to cover the cost of production.
Earlier, tomato and onion growers in Maharashtra switched to other crops due to low prices, resulting in lower yields this year. This, along with supply disruption from Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Karnataka, boosted prices of tomato in northern states in June and they are still significantly high.
