Straggling rabi crop cultivation underlines flaws in India agri policy

Low paddy sowing is weighing on sales of agricultural inputs, points out Edelweiss Securities Ltd. “Our channel checks indicate that consumption has been under pressure due to lower paddy sowing, erratic & untimely monsoon and weak fruit & vegetable prices," analysts at Edelweiss said in a note.

 

This comes on the back of an already subdued performance in FY19, when deficient rains, weak demand and input cost pressures adversely impacted agrochemical firms’ earnings in the first nine months. An analysis of 21 agrochemical firms’ finances by CARE Ratings Ltd shows pressure on profitability. Net profit margin narrowed 1.6 percentage points to 7.6%.

 

Unless farm produce prices rise and realizations improve, the expected rural recovery can be elusive. A case in point is the MSP hike in the last crop (kharif) season. For all the hype, the MSP hike has brought limited relief.

Procurement constraints, weak exports and lacklustre global agri-commodity prices rendered the MSP hike ineffective.

“As of mid-Feb '19, only 6% of the FY19 kharif pulses + oilseeds output has been procured, lower than the 9% done last year, and much lower than the expectation of 25% of output to be procured at MSP. The lower MSP based procurement leads to high discount of market prices to MSP (5-30%) for many crops, particularly in pulses," JM Financial Institutional Securities Ltd said in a note. Needless to say, higher MSPs need to be taken with a pinch of salt if procurement at these prices is reducing.

And while cash transfers help, they can provide temporary relief at best.

For a sustainable recovery, the government will still have to pursue reforms in marketing and supply chain. “The broader reforms in the agri-supply chain and agri-marketing, unfortunately takes a back seat in the current focus of income support schemes. We believe unless structural reforms in agriculture are undertaken, farm profitability would remain under stress," add analysts at JM Financial.