The government today said farmers will get financial assistance in case of their crop getting damaged due to cold wave or frost, and raised the sugarcane price that mills pay to growers by 17 per cent to 170 rupees per quintal – a decision aimed at improving the lot of peasants.

An official release says that the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, CCEA has approved the Fair and Remunerative Price (FRP) of sugarcane payable by sugar mills for 2012-13 to be fixed at 170 rupees per quintal. The FRP, the minimum price to be paid by mills to cane farmers, for 2011-12 marketing year ending September stands at 145 rupees per quintal.

In another major decision, the Cabinet has decided farmers can get financial relief in case of crop damage due to cold wave/frost under the State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF) and National Disaster Response Fund (NDRF).

At present, cyclone, drought, earthquake, fire, flood, tsunami, hailstorm, landslide, avalanche, cloud burst and pest attack are treated as natural calamities and are eligible for relief under the SDRF and NDRF.

In order to discourage imports of refined palm oil and protect domestic edible oil processors, the CCEA decided to defreeze the tariff value on imported RBD palmolein from 484 US Dollars per tonne and align it with the current global prices.
Although the import duty on refined oil is 7.5 per cent, the government has kept unchanged the tariff value, the base price on which custom duty is determined to check under invoicing by importers, since July 2006 due to high inflation.
Lower tariff value coupled with Indonesia's decision to reduce export duty have led to sharp rise in India's imports of refined palm oil. India imports more than half of its domestic requirement.While palm oil is being imported from Indonesia and Malaysia, soyabean oil comes from Argentina and Brazil.