-TheWire.in Announced in the 2018-19 budget, the scheme was meant to provide small and marginal farmers with 22,000 mini APMCs and thus fair prices. But RTI queries show that not a single haat has been developed into an agricultural market. New Delhi: The Centre’s scheme to convert rural haats (village markets) into agricultural markets, which was meant to help small and marginal farmers who cannot access the Agricultural Produce Market Committees (APMC)...
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State of Rural and Agrarian India Report 2020 reveal the vulnerabilities faced by Indian agriculture
-Press release by Network of Rural and Agrarian Studies (NRAS), dated 30th November, 2020 The “State of Rural and Agrarian India Report 2020” was released by Dr. V Ramgopal Rao, Director, IIT Delhi today in an online webinar organised by the Network of Rural and Agrarian Studies (NRAS). This report is being brought out by the NRAS, which is a pan-India network of scholars, researchers, practitioners, farmers, students, and activists engaged...
More »Farm bills: India’s fields are on fire -Devinder Sharma
-The Telegraph The tearing hurry with which agriculture market reforms have been pushed through, without even consulting farmers, has resulted in huge farm protests in Punjab and Haryana At a time when I see euphoria among mainstream economists over the new set of agricultural reforms, media reports say that the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices has observed that only 12 per cent of India’s paddy cultivators were able to sell their...
More »P Sainath, the founder editor of the People’s Archive of Rural India and former rural affairs editor of The Hindu, interviewed by Mitali Mukherjee (TheWire.in)
-TheWire.in The journalist says that though there is a very clear pro-corporate intent behind the Bills, they may enable middle-men to wring an even harder grip on the farmers. Amidst an uproar and stiff protest, three contentious farm Bills were passed in the Rajya Sabha on Sunday and Tuesday. The Bills seek to replace ordinances promulgated in June this year and were already cleared by the Lok Sabha. The idea behind all the...
More »Ensure no trading takes place below MSP -Devinder Sharma
-The Tribune With APMC markets heading towards a collapse, the new set of reforms is aimed at encouraging corporatisation, with big business moving into agriculture, storage and marketing. As the experience of US/Europe shows, when unregulated markets become dominant, small farmers are the first to be pushed out of agriculture. Reiterating what former US Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz (during Ronald Reagan’s rule) had declared: “Get big or get out,” Sonny Perdue, US...
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