On 1 Oct, the Indian Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA), a department of the union government, increased the Minimum Support Price for wheat by 6.59% at USD 29.13 per quintal for the marketing year 2026-27. Panjab farmer unions have termed the USD 1.8 hike per quintal meager at a time when the state’s agricultural sector is faced with a crisis, especially after the floods ravaged the paddy crop. Bharatiya Kisan Union (Dakanda) state general secretary Jagmohan Singh said every year the union government plays a joke with farmers. He said, 'The actual cost of wheat production is much higher than the expected cost mentioned by the committee as the prices of labor, diesel, pesticides, and fertilizers have gone up in the past one year.' He added, the CCEA must ensure that other winter crops, including mustard, lentils, barley, and grams, must be procured on MSP according to the Swaminathan Commission recommended formula C2+50%. Meanwhile, the Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) has introduced a mobile application Kisan Kapas for Aadhaar (identity card)-based registration to ensure transparency and ease MSP-based procurement for the 2025-26 season. However, farmers in Panjab are finding it difficult to register on the app due to the non-availability of fresh girdwari (crop verification) reports or the lack of verification of the available reports. Hence, private players are making most of the purchases till now and that, too, below MSP. The registration process was scheduled 1-30 Sep, but has been extended to 31 Oct. Concurrently, over 500K tonne paddy has reached Panjab grain markets out of which 96% has been lifted. On stubble burning, the latest Indian Agricultural Research Institute initiative Consortium for Research on Agroecosystem Monitoring and Modeling from Space report shows western districts of Uttar Pradesh, particularly Mathura and Aligarh display a sharp rise in stubble-burning cases while Panjab recorded its cleanest early-harvest period in the last six years. In another breakthrough, Punjab Agricultural University has created a complete package of practices for successful ginger cultivation in the state’s Kandi belt, covering sub-mountainous tract along foothills of Shivalik Hills (earlier coverage).
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