The Ficci-Yes Bank report on farm mechanisation couldn’t have come at a more appropriate time. For one, since it suggests waiving of VAT and excise duty on farm machinery, this is the time the Budget exercise has just begun. More important, the study points out that, while the use of new devices in performing key farm operations is vital for doubling agricultural growth from the present 2 per cent, the...

A solution to the pulses and edible oils crisis is entirely within reach.  The state of India’s food security is worsening by the year. The cost of food items is increasing rapidly, making them unaffordable to a majority of the people. Added to these woes is the short supply of pulses and edible oils, which forces the Central government to import them. Pulses play a critical role in the diet of...

The recent high-pressure tactics to introduce genetically engineered food crops in India are another rude reminder that Western agribusiness companies have a deeprooted strategy to obtain a stranglehold on India’s food and agriculture system. In a review of recent trends titled ‘Food Without Choice’ (The Tribune, November 1) Prof Pushpa M. Bhargava (who was nominated by the Supreme Court in the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee to protect safety concerns), an internationally...

Interview with Joan Mencher, an anthropologist who has worked in India for long on issues such as agriculture, ecology and caste.   JOAN P. MENCHER is a Professor emerita of Anthropology from the City University of New York’s Graduate Centre and Lehman College of the City University of New York. She is the chair of an embryonic not-for-profit organisation, The Second Chance Foundation, which works to support rural grass-roots organisations...

While the government may have got reprieve with the fair and remunerative price, the mills are expected to move the courts On October 21, the Central government came out with an ordinance that it will henceforth announce a fair and remunerative price for sugarcane, instead of the statutory minimum price. Millions of farmers across the country grow sugarcane which they sell to sugar mills. To make sure that prices don’t tank...