Farmers Protest 2024: Ensuring the Guarantee of Minimum Support Price (MSP)
Minimum Support Price (MSP) was first mooted in 1966-67, with the onset of the green revolution, to substantiate the Punjab farmers to use the dwarf ‘miracle’ wheat varieties that were imported from the International Centre for Maize and Wheat Research in Mexico (American-controlled) and then were cross-bred in India, primarily at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute in New Delhi. Soon MSP acted as a safety net for farmers that upside down the multitude of Indian agriculture from deficit to surplus. Initially, MSP for wheat was fixed at Rs 54 per quintal with the motive to incentivize farmers to grow wheat and paddy as they were the least lucrative and labor-intensive crops.
