UPSC Mains 2018 GS Paper 3 Q3: model answer
What do you mean by Minimum Support Price (MSP)? How will MSP rescue the farmers from the low income trap?
What the question wants
Define MSP and explain how it can lift farmers out of the low-income trap.
How to structure it
Define, mechanism, limits.
- Meaning
- How MSP is fixed
- How it rescues
- Limits
How to think it through
MSP is the price at which the government promises to buy notified crops; recommended by CACP for 22 mandated crops; since 2018–19 at least 1.5 times A2+FL. Low-income trap: low price → low investment → low yield → low income. MSP breaks it by a floor price, risk reduction and investment confidence. Limits: procurement only for some crops and states; awareness low.
Model answer
The Minimum Support Price (MSP) is the price at which the government stands ready to buy a crop, so that the farmer is never forced to sell below it. The CACP recommends MSPs for 22 mandated crops, and since 2018–19 they are set at least 1.5 times the A2+FL cost.
The low-income trap
Low prices at harvest → little saving → little investment in seed, water and soil → low yields → low income again.
How MSP helps break the trap
- Floor price: stops distress sales when markets crash at harvest.
- Risk reduction: a farmer who knows the minimum return invests more.
- Signals: higher MSPs for pulses and millets can steer crop choice.
- Credit: assured income makes repayment possible.
- Spillover: market prices often stay near MSP where procurement is active.
Limits
- Procurement is mostly rice and wheat, in Punjab, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana and a few others.
- Many farmers do not know the MSP or cannot reach a procurement centre.
- MSP alone cannot fix low yields and tiny holdings.
MSP is a safety net; to lift farmers out of the trap it must be backed by procurement, markets and productivity.
Draw: A vicious circle of low income, broken by an MSP arrow.
Keywords, cases and data to drop in
MSP, CACP, 22 mandated crops, A2+FL, C2, 1.5 times cost (2018–19), low-income trap, procurement, PM-AASHA, distress sale.
Where most answers lose marks
- Saying MSP alone ends poverty. Its reach is narrow without procurement.
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Question text as printed in the official UPSC Civil Services (Main) question paper. The model answer is original Battle IAS work; use it to learn structure, not to memorise.
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