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The Madhya Pradesh government launched a new scheme to hedge price risks in agriculture wherein farmers will be compensated for distress sales at prices below Union government-announced minimum support prices.The scheme, named Bhavantar Bhugtan Yojana (Price Deficit Financing Scheme), will initially extend to eight crops, mostly oilseeds and pulses, where government procurement is typically low unlike rice and wheat.Not only does the new scheme seek to address price risks, it could potentially mitigate the political fallout of the recent farmer unrest especially given that the state is due to go to polls next year and farmers are a key constituency. The scheme comes on the back of a bumper harvest in 2016-17 when falling crop prices sparked protests by farmers demanding loan waivers and remunerative prices, in several states such as Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra.