-The Economic Times blog Farmers, from Punjab in the north to Tamil Nadu in the south, have started agitations demanding farm loans be waived. The Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra governments have already considered it politically expedient to write them off. Some other states may follow the suit. However, such decisions are as misguided as they are misleading. Nonetheless, it will be a mistake to treat the agitations as a domino effect of...
More »SEARCH RESULT
Two charts show why western Madhya Pradesh became the epicentre of violent farmer protests -Mridula Chari
-Scroll.in Soyabean, the main crop of Malwa region, has seen a sharp fall in prices. As a small-time commission agent who buys soyabean from farmers on behalf of oilseed crushing companies in Indore, Manilal Patel has a ringside view of what sparked the farmer unrest in western Madhya Pradesh this month. The fertile Malwa plateau here produces around 20% of India’s’s soyabean. As much as 80% of the crop used to be...
More »Why a price increase alone won't help farmers -Elumalai Kannan
-The Hindu Fundamental problems of crop and regional bias of MSP policy, govt. procurement and access to institutional credit need to be addressed. Agricultural distress is often viewed as a short-term phenomenon in which farmers look for support from various quarters on account of being unable to get a gainful return due to price crash, poor marketing facilities, rising credit burden, increasing cost of inputs and frequent occurrence of natural calamities. A...
More »The best of times, the worst of times -Mihir Shah
-The Hindu Without government support, farmers pay the price for a bumper crop they labour so hard to produce The ongoing farmers’ agitation has taken on a shockingly violent form. Discussion has revolved around an apparent paradox: why are farmers rioting after a bumper crop? But any student of economics knows that prices fall after bumper harvests, which is good for consumers but terrible for farmers. This is why the government needs...
More »Punjab Cotton Farmers' Dilemma: Despite More Crop Yield, Profit Is Meagre -Nikhil Pandhi
-NDTV This year, the Punjab government claims farmers are likely have a bumper cotton harvest, with cotton acreage doubling in the Malwa region to about 3.9 lakh acres -- against last year's 2.4 lakh acres -- and the government's awareness and action-against-whitefly campaigns in place Punjab: Baldev Sharma, 39, from Bathinda's Talwandi Sabo is a third generation cotton farmer. This year he sowed cotton on 12 acres of land compared to...
More »