-RuralIndiaOnline.org Farmers in Maharashtra’s Nashik district – where one in every four tomatoes in India comes from – are destroying standing crops on a scale never seen before, following persistent rock-bottom prices since the November 8 demonetisation On Christmas morning, barely 24 hours after Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation of the Rs. 3,600 crore Shivaji statue in Mumbai, Yashwant and Hirabai Bendkule were slashing and uprooting the tomato vines on...

-Hindustan Times The government’s decision to scrap high-value currency has sent wholesale vegetable prices crashing to rock-bottom levels, bringing misery to millions of farmers hoping for good returns for their produce after two successive drought years. Onions sold for just Re 1 per kilogram in wholesale markets at Madhya Pradesh’s Neemuch and Mandsaur this week while tomatoes cost less than Rs 2 per kg in Andhra Pradesh and Chandigarh. A kilogram of cauliflower...

-Hindustan Times Bhopal: The Centre’s demonetisation move has hit the farmers in MP’s Bundelkhand hard who were hoping for good rabi crops after facing four years of hardships owing to drought in the region. Farming is the main occupation in the region, and heavy rains this year had brought smiles on the faces of farmers. As the sowing for winter crops was almost complete in this part of the state before demonetisation was...

-The Times of India In the finely balanced but lucrative economy of vegetable and fruit trade, demonetisation has had a bizarre effect. In distant rural areas, local vegetable prices — both wholesale and retail — have crashed as the oxygen of currency has been suddenly sucked out. Since the whole economy depended on cash, from transport to mandis to purchase prices, this is unsurprising. But in cities, where there is more liquidity,...

-Frontline.in To rural India, which is already reeling under multiple crises, demonetisation has come as yet another blow. WHEN the Prime Minister made the decision to withdraw Rs.500 and Rs.1,000 notes, he did not quite factor in the impact it would have on agriculture. Despite the rhetoric the concept of digital wallets has not yet entered rural India unlike in much of the country’s urban areas, and much of rural and...