-The Indian Express The ongoing price recovery in major crops is in danger of being stymied by knee-jerk government response. A lot of analyst commentary on the latest quarterly GDP numbers for India has focused on the low growth in “nominal” terms: Gross value added (GVA) at current prices grew by just 6.3% year-on-year in July-September and 7.1% for April-September. If this first-half trend holds for the rest of 2019-20, it would...

-The Hindu Business Line The proposals relating to registration of seed varieties and powers granted to the government to fix prices in some situations need a relook Seed is the primary input of a productive agriculture set-up. No one can deny the fact that the seed industry has been at the centre of the significant advances made in agriculture in the last four decades and will continue to do in the years...

-The Indian Express More than 90 per cent of the cane returns are spent by farmers. as cultivation cost and for repayment of crop loans. So how would these farmers survive for a year or more without receiving their entire produce amount by a sugar mill? The sugar industry was unanimous in hailing the push given by the Narendra Modi government for the production of ethanol. The policy, which was unveiled...

The Hindu Business Line In an article on Monday, this writer pointed out how it is a challenging task to double farmers’ income, given the fall in output prices and the higher cost of farm inputs. In an interview, Ashok Dalwai, CEO, Doubling Farmers’ Income Committee, talks about the various measures the Centre is taking to ensure it is on the right track and reaches its target by 2022. According to...

-The Hindu Business Line Noted Gandhian economist Dr Sudarshan Iyengar surveys the distressed agricultural landscape, pinpoints its weaknesses, and prescribes solutions with their roots in Gandhian agronomics. Edited excerpts from an interview to BusinessLine: * Given the agrarian crisis in India today, how relevant are Gandhi's economic principles based on the village economy, and equitable distribution of resources? They are relevant in the context of Gandhi's view of gram swaraj (village self-rule), which...