I like to bring the following statistics to the kind notice of the commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices.
Price Indices of Coconut and some of its products with base year 1983
YEAR Coconut (WOH) Price Index Copra (Mill) Price Index Coconut oil Price Index 1983 1653 1362 2089 1984 2885 174.53 2186 160.50 3344 160.08 1985 1652 99.94 1299 95.37 2011 96.27 1986 1850 111.92 1404 103.08 2202 105.41 1987 2488 150.51 1966 144.35 3030 145.05 1988 2718 164.43 2099 154.11 3191 152.75 1989 2115 127.95 1595 117.11 2465 118.00 1990 2410 145.80 1802 132.31 2722 130.30 1991 3246 196.37 2682 196.92 4147 198.52 1992 3928 237.63 3055 224.30 4642 222.21 1993 3590 217.18 26.45 194.20 4033 193.06 1994 2939 177.80 2188 160.65 3329 159.36 1995 3104 187.78 2341 171.88 3555 170.18 1996 3384 234.97 3007 220.78 4542 217.42 1997 4707 284.75 3572 262.26 5387 257.87 1998 3989 241.32 3021 221.81 4537 217.19 1999 4933 298.43 3653 268.21 5558 266.06 2000 3357 203.09 2477 181.86 3669 175.63 2001 3050 184.51 2044 150.07 3100 148.40 2002 3783 228.86 2858 209.84 4340 207.75 2003 4666 282.27 3866 283.85 58.64 280.71 2004 5525 334.24 4353 319.60 6559 313.98 2005 5198 314.46 3774 277.09 5621 269.08 2006 4516 273.14 3360 246.70 5038 241.17 2007 3976 240.53 3322 243.91 4982 238.49 2008 5590 338.17 4183 307.12 6234 298.42 From the above table of price indices it is clear to note that when we take 1983 as the base year, for 1000 nuts WOH the price index for the current year is 338 indicating that the price increase noted on coconut for the current year is 3.38 times the price of their product for 1983. Similarly the price increase noticed on a quintal of milling copra for the current year is 307 indicating that the price increase for copra for the current year is 3.07 times the price of copra for 1983. The price increase noticed on one quintal of coconut oil for current year is 2.98 times the price of coconut oil for 1983.
Now we look with the wage/salary index category of Govt. servants and other workers. From office records one can easily observe that an Assistant in any university of Kerala would draw an initial basic pay of Rs. 675 carrying a DA of Rs. 112 with a total of Rs. 797 (excluding other allowances such as HRA, CCA which vary from place to place) during 1983 where as initial starting basic pay for the same post is Rs. 7990 carrying a DA of Rs. 3036 with a total of Rs. 11,026 during 2008. Thus the salary index of the salary of an Assistant who will enter in service during 2008 is 1383. Thus the salary increase noticed on the initial appointment as Assistant in an University during 2008 is 13.83 times that of 1983. From the diary records one could observe that the wage given to an agricultural labourer during 1983 would be Rs. 20 where as the wage given today is Rs. 250 which is around 12.5 times the wage of 1983.
Look on the plight of the poor coconut farmers whose coconut products have shown a price growth of about 3 times over a period of 25 years whereas those of Govt. servants and other labourers attained a growth of 12.5 to 13.8 times. At this rate the economic condition of farmers who depend on coconut farms will only push them to suicidal point. The Govt. is appeasing very much its employees by giving revised salaries, DA's and reducing the tax burden year after year.The agricultural and other labourers also by their trade union power get a reasonable growth in their wages., while the poor coconut farmers toil in the soil, shed their sweat and blood without getting reasonable price for their products.
What is the role of Govt. in the Country? It is sharing the major portion of its resorces among its functionaries? In the Gross State Domestic product of Kerala (at constant prices) data provided in 'Statistics of planning 2005' published by the department of Economics and Statistics, Govt. of Kerala the contribution from agricultural sector over the years 1998-99 to 2003-04 are as given below.
YEAR 1998-99 1999-00 2000-01 2001-02 2002-03 2003-04 GSDP Rs. in lakhs (Agriculture) 721098 733584 576701 562236 569124 547472 The coconut farmers are really the most troubled lot in the farming sector. Their crop being a crop meant for 50 or more number of years, they cannot switch over easily to other crops. they cannot nurture their farms because of insufficient return. So the farm remain more and more unproductive contributing much of lower GDP. As rightly pointed out by Dr. M.S. Swaminathan, the MSP should be atleast 50% more than the weighted average cost of production so that the net take home income of farmers will be comparable to some extent of those in civil servants and other labourers. Hence I strongly feel that MSP for milling copra should be rised to a more reasonable level than Rs. 4900/qtl so as to make a kick start of retarded farm sector of Kerala.
By
P. Yageen Thomas
Professor & head
Dept. of Statistics
University of Kerala
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The agri commodities index
This is very good material and thanks for sharing it with us. The Consortium of Indian Farmers' Associations and the Federation of Farmers' Associations has also been comparing income indices with crop prices to show that government policy and rural reality are very different, and often tragically so. I hope this table below reproduces - it's from a commodities data table maintained by a division of the World Bank (whatever else the Bank does, it does have an excellent data collection system):
This shows the global tend. You're right about the CACP being way behind the reality curve, despite what the National Commission of Farmers has recommended in every version of its reports. What's to be done? Let's keep this dialogue going with other Agropedia members too.
Comment of Rahul Goswami
rahul.goswami,
Thanks for your valuable comment.