-Livemint.com * Market participation is meaningless without information. Should every Indian farmer get a smartphone? * Without internet connectivity and market intelligence, the transaction cost associated with selling in places outside the local market are higher than the value of the produce FATEHPUR: Kamlakant is a smallholder farmer in Daulatiyapur village of Fatehpur district in Uttar Pradesh. He is an enthusiastic vegetable cultivator and every season, he searches for answers to three basic...

-PTI/ The Hindu “Overall, the difference between wholesale and retail inflation is primarily due to supply-side factors which should decrease and therefore going forward even the retail inflation should ease,” Mr. Subramanian said. Attributing the rise in inflation to supply-side frictions, Chief Economic Adviser K V Subramanian has exuded confidence that retail inflation will come down in the days ahead with the easing of lockdowns. According to the government data, retail inflation rose...

-Livemint.com Trade moving outside regulated markets could lead to speculation and volatile prices, warn experts NEW DELHI: After the Centre enacted a new set of laws freeing internal trade in farm produce, crop arrivals in regulated wholesale markets have witnessed a sharp decline. However, off-market transactions between farmers and traders which are going unrecorded could be fueling food inflation as traders engage in speculation and hoarding, experts said. An analysis of numbers from...

-Livemint.com * As consumers bear the brunt of high food costs, growers see no benefit. How long will this strange dynamic last? * Many lower income consumers are also not enrolled under the federal food security scheme. An estimate suggests that over 100 million eligible Indians are excluded Ramesh Pangal calls it a season of miseries: Farmers running around with vegetables to find a buyer; leaving tomatoes to rot in the field; dumping...

-The Indian Express Noor Jamal, 25, lives at Satrakanara village in Barpeta district, which is heavily flooded. “In the lockdown, I could not sell our produce of vegetables and jute. And now there is flood water in the paddy field, it will damage the crops,” he said. Guwahati: At Bhuragaon in Assam’s Morigaon district, adjacent to the Brahmaputra and severely affected in this year’s floods, two hectares of the paddy field of...