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LATEST NEWS UPDATES | Plough to plate, hand held by the Indian state -Mihir Shah

Plough to plate, hand held by the Indian state -Mihir Shah

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published Published on Apr 9, 2021   modified Modified on Apr 9, 2021

-The Hindu

The distinct characteristics of India’s agriculture require that a reformed state must ensure farmer, consumer welfare

For at least four decades now, economic policy making globally has dogmatically adhered to the notion that a progressively reduced role of the state would automatically deliver greater economic growth and welfare to the people. Since reform, by definition, is taken to mean only one thing, sector after sector is compulsively sought to be moved in this direction, even if overwhelming evidence, over many years from all over the world, indicates that it is the state that has played the leading role in provisioning the most critical aspects of life: water, sanitation, education, health, food and nutrition. There are very specific characteristics of agriculture, as also crucial elements of the socio-historical context, which imply that the Indian state must continue to intervene in multiple markets, and make critical investments, to ensure the welfare of both farmers and consumers.

Specificities of agriculture

Due to a variety of limiting factors, from uncertainties of the weather to soil fertility and water availability, increasing returns to scale are very difficult to achieve in farming. This underscores the need for the right kind of public investment in agriculture. Again, economies of scale allow producers in industry to make profits by cutting unit costs, even as prices fall, while those who fail to make the cut, get eliminated from competition. But in agriculture, members of the family can be drafted to work on the family’s farm, as also in other farm and non-farm work. This phenomenon is quite widespread in India today: of the nine crore rural families who draw their main income from unskilled manual labour, four crore are small and marginal farmers. Through overwork and self-exploitation, peasant farmers are able to cling on to their land.

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The Hindu, 9 April, 2021, https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/plough-to-plate-hand-held-by-the-indian-state/article34275034.ece?homepage=true


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