-Livemint.com Roots of disagreement lie in how farm support is calculated under WTO, with US blaming India for under-reporting subsidy given for wheat and rice Bengaluru: Farm subsidies seem to have become a major flashpoint in the escalating global trade war. In May, India came under attack from the US for its minimum support price (MSP) policy for foodgrain. India hit back, along with China, to demand that developed nations give up...

-Firstpost.com The recent increases in minimum support prices have attracted two criticisms from two opposite sides. One is that this is less than what farmers deserve, the second is that this is populist and ignores larger macro side effects. The increase in fair remunerative price for sugarcane has also been criticised for not adequately addressing the woes of the sugar sector. Ramesh Chand, member, agriculture, NITI Aayog talks to Firstpost on...

-The Indian Express Only 21 per cent of India’s milk production gets processed through the organised sector and the rest passes through unorganised small players. And that’s where the crisis is most intense. Farmers, who had high expectations from the Narendra Modi government, are a disillusioned lot today. Market prices of several crops have remained well below their minimum support prices (MSPs). Moreover, milk prices have fallen by 20 per cent...

-Livemint.com While there are several creditable achievements, it is the deeper structural reforms where expectations from a strong government have not been met Amidst expectations of a magical transformation of the Indian economy, the Narendra Modi government took over the reins in May 2014. During the election campaign, people were led to believe that the Gujarat model of agricultural development, which delivered 8% growth in agriculture during fiscal years 2003-14, would be...

-Livemint.com India needs to defend policies that make agriculture remunerative and stand by its poor at this stage of development In an attempt to combat rural distress, the Union budget announced this year by finance minister Arun Jaitley promised a new deal to farmers—minimum support prices (MSP) that would be 150% of the cost of production. The government is expected to announce the first set of support prices under the new policy in...