Govt sets up high-level committee for organic produce price policy

In a move aimed at ensuring fair prices for cultivators, the Nayab Singh Saini-led government has constituted a high-level committee to formulate a price policy for natural and organic produce, with the participation of farmers in the decision-making process.

The committee, chaired by the Principal Secretary/Additional Chief Secretary of the Agriculture Department, will include directors of key stakeholder departments, such as Agriculture and Food and Civil Supplies, and heads of the Departments of Agricultural Economics and Agronomy at Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agricultural University (HAU), Hisar.

Deputy Directors of Agriculture from Ambala, Karnal, Rohtak, Hisar, Gurugram and Faridabad will also be members, along with the Chief Executive Officer, Haryana Kisan Kalyan Pradhikaran, who will act as member-secretary.

According to the government notification, the panel has been tasked to “examine the break-up of the cost of cultivation supplied by the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) and recommend price fixation for natural and organic produce.”

Pankaj Agarwal, Principal Secretary, Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Department, said the committee would meet twice a year — before each rabi and kharif season — to frame recommendations for an effective pricing policy.

Terming it another “pro-farmer initiative”, Rajeev Jaitly, media adviser to the Chief Minister, said, “The committee’s recommendations would go a long way in providing remunerative prices to the farmers. The committee’s recommendations will prove to be a milestone in farmers’ well-being with the ultimate aim of ease of living for the farming community.”

Officials said the inclusion of field-level officers, university experts and farmers’ representatives would ensure wider and more practical inputs in the policy process.

For price fixation, the branch heads or scheme incharges of the Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Department will submit crop-wise data and recommendations to the committee before every season for analysis of major natural and organic crops.