-Outlook Good monsoon or bad, glut or drought, boom or bust...it’s always fair weather for the range of middlemen who come between the farmer and consumer. An anatomy of the trade. One of the axioms of logic is called the Law of the Excluded Middle. Something has to be either true or false—there’s no middle ground. As we all know, economics works a bit differently. Facts can be fickle, data pliable, and...
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Burden of farming outweighs rewards: Is India staring at another Nandigram moment? - Rajesh Mahapatra
-Hindustan Times Interventions such as loan waivers or MSP revisions can at best offer temporary succour. At worst, they deflect attention from the real issues behind the crisis that has been in the making for long On March 14, 2007, when 14 farmers died in a clash between villagers and police forces in Nandigram of West Bengal over acquisition of land for an industrial project, few had imagined it would mark a...
More »Is India faced with a 3.1 lakh crore farm-loan waiver? And will it help?
-IANS As demands for farm-loan waivers grow across Punjab, Haryana, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Karnataka -- after Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra wrote off loans worth Rs 36,359 crore and Rs 30,000 crore, respectively -- India faces a cumulative loan waiver of Rs 3.1 lakh crore, or 2.6 per cent of its GDP in 2016-17. A waiver of this scale could pay for the 2017 rural roads budget 16 times over...
More »The crops of wrath -Harish Damodaran
-The Indian Express Demonetisation may not have hit agriculture production but it is the cause for the current unrest When demonetisation happened, many, including this writer, thought the decision, taken at the start of rabi plantings in November, would significantly impact farm production. We were proved wrong. Good monsoon rains, after successive drought years, besides the timely onset of winter conducive to germination, turned out to be strong motivations for farmers...
More »Note ban effect: GDP growth enters slow lane in Q4 at 6.1% -Ishan Bakshi & Indivjal Dhasmana
-Business Standard GVA growth at 2-year low of 5.6%; Farming only bright spot India’s economic growth fell to 6.1 per cent in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2016-17 (FY17), primarily because of demonetisation adversely affecting economic activity. This was at least a four-quarter low. The sectors worst affected were construction and financial services. Without indirect taxes, growth figures would be more dismal. Gross value added (GVA), the difference between gross domestic product...
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