The System: MSP, Mandi, Arhtiya & FCI, Made Simple

Kissan Andolan — The Complete Story · Part 2 of 12 · by Lovepreet Singh

Here is the secret to understanding the whole Kissan Andolan: the entire fight of 2020 is really a fight about one machine — the system by which a farmer sells a crop. Learn this machine, and everything else in the story will suddenly make sense.

In this part

• Let's follow one bag of wheat
• Player 1: MSP — the promised floor price
• The formula fight: "A2+FL" versus "C2+50%"
• Player 2: The Mandi (the government market)
• Player 3: The Arhtiya (the middleman everyone argues about)
• Player 4: The FCI (the giant government buyer)
• Where it all goes: feeding two-thirds of India
• The catch that explains the entire war
• So why hug a flawed system?
• Where we go next

Here is the secret to understanding the whole Kissan Andolan: the entire fight of 2020 is really a fight about one machine — the system by which a farmer sells a crop. Learn this machine, and everything else in the story will suddenly make sense. In Part 1 we met the farmer and his world. Now we open the hood and look at the engine. Don't worry — I'll build it one bolt at a time, and I promise to keep it simple. By the end of this part you'll understand four words that get thrown around on the news but are almost never explained: MSP, mandi, arhtiya, and FCI . 1 Let's follow one bag of wheat The easiest way to understand the machine is to follow the grain. So imagine a farmer — let's call him Baldev. He has just harvested his wheat. Where does it go, and how does he get paid? Follow the journey: 1 Harvest. Baldev cuts his wheat and loads the golden grain onto a tractor-trolley. ▼ 2…

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