-Hindustan Times India’s obsession with keeping food prices low, even when there’s no inflationary pressure, has long hurt farm incomes Farming is gloriously uncertain, thanks not just to uncertain weather, but also unpredictable policies. Let’s zoom into the finances of Bhupinder Pal Singh, a horticulturist from Babbain, a village in Haryana, a state that counts itself among the first places where India’s Green Revolution of 1960s began. In good years, Singh would earn...

-TheWire.in India already has several kinds of FPOs. So why have they not made a dent on farmers' woes? On July 5, 2019, the government of India announced its intent to promote 10,000 farmer producer organisations (FPOs) over the next five years, as part of its efforts to increase farmer income and reduce agrarian distress.   Such collectivisation can be very powerful. The best known example of an FPO is that of Amul...

-The Telegraph "The government has miserably failed to stimulate the domestic economy. It has spent less and less on public education, healthcare and infrastructure because of its erroneous policy" The Modi government has an ambitious plan to create a $5-trillion economy in the next five years — but all data points are heavily stacked against it. The economy is floundering and the Reserve Bank of India has already trimmed its growth forecast...

In the financial year 2017-18 when tractor sales touched new heights, it was said by many of the NDA (viz. National Democratic Alliance) government supporters that rural demand has revived on account of adequate monsoon rainfall and higher minimum support prices for crops. Many economists and newspaper columnists also denied the existence of any rural distress. An alternative perspective, however, was also presented by rural economists like Dr. Himanshu who teaches...

-Down to Earth To double farmers’ income reduce the number of farmers, suggest policy makers Among senior officials in the Union government and members of the Niti Aayog, conversations now start and end with one subject: “doubling farmers’ income by 2022”. Clearly, the obsession with open defecation-free India is over as, unofficially, India has achieved the target before the October 2019 deadline. But the new target to double farmers’ income by 2022 has...