Kiran Kumar Vissa and Yogendra Yadav Kiran Kumar Vissa, Agriculture activist; Yogendra Yadav, president, Swaraj India Can the farmers be offered a guaranteed remunerative price for their produce? The government, some economists and the media would have you believe that this is impossible, both logistically and financially. They are wrong. They either do not understand what the farmers demand, or have not calculated the costs; or they mislead, deliberately. If there was one moment to bust this myth, it is now, when lakhs of farmers are preparing to march to the Capital on Republic Day. Fortunately, we don’t have to start from scratch. The Central government declares minimum support price (MSP) for 23 crops every year. So, in principle, the government does recognise that the farmers need and deserve a minimum price for their produce. It has a mechanism, however faulty and disputed, for computing and announcing this price. And it acknowledges, though not in legal terms, its responsibility to “support” the farmers in terms of their price.