-The Hindu Business Line Pune: The protest against the Centre’s newly introduced farm laws is loudest in Punjab and Haryana, where the MSP mechanism is robust, benefiting wheat growing farmers. However, government data shows that Madhya Pradesh farmers have steadily taken over wheat growers in Punjab and Haryana to reap benefits of MSP in the last five years. Data from rabi marketing seasons (RMS) 2016-17 to 2020-21 shows that 47,58,350 farmers from...

-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...

-The Hindu Farmers in Punjab are worried about the implications of the three new farm bills that will allow them to sell their produce directly to private players. Vikas Vasudeva reports on the concerns of farmers, commission agents and workers despite the government’s assurances that the legislation empowers them In June 2020, 55-year-old Shingara Singh in Fatehpur village in Patiala, Punjab, sold his spring season maize crop at ₹700-₹800 per quintal, far...

-Down to Earth Exceptional growth in agriculture and acreage in kharif season precipitate a crisis like never before for farmers   In recent times, agriculture made headlines for all the wrong reasons: Farmers quitting cultivation; the sector turning into a perennial loss-making enterprise; and the country’s official policy to downsize the dependence on agriculture to reduce overall economic hardship among the poorest of the population. Agriculture’s fast-declining economic importance reached such an extent...

-The Indian Express Current economic contraction is different from previous ones. Governments should borrow and spend India has never experienced negative economic growth since 1979-80, and before that in 1972-73, 1965-66 and 1957-58. All these were drought years with 1957-58 also registering a significant balance of payments (BOP) deterioration and 1979-80 witnessing the second global oil shock following the Iranian Revolution. The real GDP decline of 5-10 per cent that various agencies are...