-Hindustan Times/ Livemint.com “There is an immediate need to improve agricultural infrastructure so that we produce more, while also conserving and processing agricultural output efficiently,” Nirmala Sitharaman said in her budget speech. The government on Monday introduced a new agriculture infrastructure development cess (AIDC) on petrol, diesel and several other imported items. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman assured it won’t place any additional burden on consumers. However, following the introduction of the cess, states...

-The Hindu The methodology behind the OECD’s numbers, that suggests negative support, has pitfalls and limitations The ongoing stalemate between the farmers protesting over the recently passed farm laws and the government has sparked an interesting debate regarding the level of agricultural support. Many media reports, based on data by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), have ostensibly stated that the support provided to Indian agriculture is extremely low or...

-The Hindu They express outrage at the composition of the committee being set up Farm unions are meeting at the Singhu border to discuss the developments in the Supreme Court on Tuesday, and their next steps. Before the Samyukt Kisan Morcha meeting, which was scheduled to begin late in the afternoon, a few leaders expressed their disappointment with the court’s directions, and outrage at the composition of the committee being set up. “See...

-The Hindu The gender gap in the agriculture sector will only widen more with the current farm laws Eminent agriculture scientist M.S. Swaminathan once said, “Some historians believe that it was women who first domesticated crop plants and thereby initiated the art and science of farming. While men went out hunting in search of food, women started gathering seeds from the native flora and began cultivating those of interest from the point...

-TheWire.in The economists, who have engaged with issues of agricultural policy, said that the Centre's reforms were based on "wrong assumptions" about why farmers were unable to get remunerative prices. New Delhi: A group of senior economists have released an open letter to the Union agriculture minister Narendra Singh Tomar calling for the repeal of the three contentious farm bills “which are not in the best interests of the small and marginal...