Critically examine the role of the Agricultural Prices Commission/CACP as an advisory body in procurement and pricing decisions.

The Agricultural Prices Commission (APC) was set up on 8 January 1965 and renamed the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP) in 1985 [1]. Today the Government fixes Minimum Support Prices (MSPs) for 22 mandated crops on its recommendations [2]. The CACP only advises; it does not decide. That is both its main strength and its main limit.

Role in pricing and procurement

• Price signal: It recommends MSPs based on the cost of production. The Government then considers the views of States and Central Ministries before fixing them [2].
• Procurement planning: The 1976 kharif policy was built on an APC report. That report covered rice zones, the Rs 74/quintal price for coarse paddy and the procurement target [3].
• Institutional pairing: The APC set the price, while the FCI bought, stored and moved grain from surplus to deficit areas [4].

Strengths

• Technical, evidence-based advice that is partly shielded from day-to-day politics. Farmers are represented on the Commission [4].
• Stocked the public distribution system: Procurement at assured prices supplied the urban rationing that the 1950 Foodgrains Procurement Commission had called for [4].
• Flexibility: Because the advice is not binding, the Cabinet can adjust it to fit budgets and stock levels. In 1976 it cut the rice target from 5.5 MT to 4.4 MT [3].

Weaknesses

• Easily overridden: The 1976 cut shows how politics can replace the Commission's reasoning [3]. Since 2018-19, the Budget's rule that MSP must be at least 1.5 times the cost of production has fixed the minimum before the CACP's analysis [2].
• Price without purchase: MSPs are announced for 22 crops [2], but the Shanta Kumar Committee found that only ~6% of farmers sell to procurement agencies [5].
• Regional skew: Procurement is concentrated in a few states. The Committee asked FCI to shift towards Eastern UP, Bihar, West Bengal and Assam, where farmers are forced to sell below MSP [5].

Way forward

• Give the CACP statutory autonomy, and require the Government to explain in public whenever it departs from the Commission's advice.
• Extend procurement to more states through decentralised procurement and price-deficiency payments.

Overall, the APC/CACP has given India's food economy a technical basis for pricing, but the Government often decides against its advice, and procurement reaches only some crops and states. More autonomy for the Commission and wider procurement would turn its advice into real farm incomes. That would serve Article 47's call for better nutrition and SDG-2 (Zero Hunger).