Context:

Amidst the lockdown, the Union government has asked all States / UTs asked to implement Market Intervention Scheme to ensure remunerative prices to farmers for perishable crops

About:

• The Market Intervention Scheme (MIS) is an ad-hoc scheme under which are included horticultural commodities and other agricultural commodities which are perishable in nature and which are not covered under the minimum price support scheme.
• It aims to intervene the market to protect the growers of their commodities from making distress sale in the event of a bumper crop during the peak arrival period when the prices tend to fall below economic levels and cost of production.
• The Scheme is implemented when there is at least 10% increase in production or 10% decrease in the ruling rates over the previous normal year.
• The Department of Agriculture & Cooperation is implementing the scheme. Under MIS, funds are not allocated to the States, instead central share of losses.
• Losses suffered are shared on 50:50 basis between Central Government and the State.  Market Intervention Scheme works in a similar fashion to Minimum Support Price based procurement mechanism for food grains.