Impact of Agricultural Price Policy on Major Food Crops in Haryana

Abstract

The present study aimed to analyze the impact of Agricultural Price Policy on major food crops in Haryana. The Secondary data on Farm Harvest Prices (FHP) and Minimum Support Prices (MSP) of major food crops were collected from Statistical Abstract of Haryana, Directorate of Marketing and Inspection and Commission for Agricultural Cost and Prices for the period 2007-08 to 2017-18. The effectiveness of the price policy during the harvest periods was examined by the deviations of FHP from MSP and classified into positive and negative deviations (to examine whether market prices ruled higher or lower than the minimum support prices). Gap between FHP and MSP resulted that in mostly cases FHP is higher than MSP because higher demand due to more procurement for central part than supplies does not allow the market prices to fall below MSP. In recent years, market prices ruled higher than MSP. The impact of MSP on area is higher but there is non-significant impact of MSP on productivity of food crops. The study revealed that there is significant variation in areas of food crops due to previous year’s minimum support prices of the food crops but there is non-significant variation in productivity of food crops.