Samyukt Kisan Morcha rejects rabi MSP, demands revision

The Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM), an umbrella organisation of about 500 farmers’ outfits, said in a statement on Saturday (October 4, 2026) that the recently announced minimum support price (MSP) for the upcoming rabi crops was an insult to farmers. The Narendra Modigovernment was speaking “Washington language” to the farmers and rural youth of the country, the SKM said.

The farmers’ body asked farmers and youth to burn copies of the Government Order in every village. “The government has raised the MSP of wheat by ₹25 a quintal. That is 25 paise a kilo. It will not buy even a third of a litre of diesel. Yet the government calls it a ‘106% profit’. If farming paid like that [at 106% profit], no young person would have to leave the village in search of work,” the SKM’s statement said.

The government’s ‘cost’ (A2 or actual paid-out costs + FL or family labour) leaves out the rent on the family’s own land and the interest on its own capital, the SKM said. “The full cost is C2 [comprehensive cost of production], and the Swaminathan Commission said the MSP must be C2+50%. Counting the full cost, even on the CACP’s [Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices] own data, and the wheat margin is 43%, not 106%. Not one rabi crop gets C2+50%,” the release added.

“Nobody was heard, not even the BJP’s own State governments. This is the BJP’s anti-federal policy: strip the States of their powers and pile them up in Delhi. In January 2026, the Finance Ministry asked every State to consider discontinuing its bonus on wheat and paddy. The CACP says such bonuses distort the market. That is the very charge the United States makes against India’s MSP at the WTO [World Trade Organization]. Our government now speaks Washington’s language against our own farmers,” the SKM said.

The SKM demanded a legally guaranteed MSP at C2+50% on an honestly calculated cost. “Immediate revision: wheat at no less than ₹3,418, barley at ₹3,518, gram at ₹9,205, lentil [masur] at ₹9,947, rapeseed and mustard at ₹8,684, and safflower at ₹10,630. [We demand] respect for States’ price recommendations and full freedom for States to pay bonus,” the SKM said.