Contract farming, Private investments and low MSPs

1. RCF (Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilizers) is planning to get into contract farming and green house businesses by leveraging its customer network and land holding. The company plans to build a network of at least 1,000 farmers to grow flowers, fruits and vegetables. Recently similar announcement was made by Bayer CropScience.

2. Contract farming verses cooperative farming - what is the difference. My guess is that in former, some corporate guy takes over farm land from small farmers or bound them by the contract, while in the later one, farmers unite and make a society like Amul and sow and sell the produce together.

3. Farmers are unhappy with the low MSP fixed by government. The input costs have risen much faster that the final output. Some comparative numbers with 1966 are given. According to Mahendra Singh Tikait, farmers' leader, fair price for wheat should be rs 3000/quintal and for sugarcane it should be Rs 250 a quintal.