-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 Indian Express The idea of a Minimum Support Price for crops came first from a visiting US soil scientist and fertiliser expert The institution of ‘mandis’ is as old as markets where wholesale trading in primary produce has been taking place since time immemorial. APMCs or Agricultural Produce Market Committees are of more recent vintage and the creation of Sir Chhotu Ram. In 1939, the legendary farmer leader, as Development Minister in...

-The Indian Express The newly passed farm trade Bill has raised concerns that farmers may no longer be assured MSP for their crop. But MSP isn’t even mentioned in the new law or in existing ones. How is it fixed, and how binding is it? The recently enacted law that dismantles the monopoly of APMC (agricultural produce market committee) mandis, thereby allowing sale and purchase of crops outside these state government-regulated market...

-The Tribune 70% India imports almost three-fourths of its annual domestic consumption of edible oils KHARIF harvesting operations are going to begin soon. Agricultural production is likely to surpass last year’s record production by 7-8%. The higher production inevitably puts downward pressure on market prices. The problem of low harvest prices has been compounded by the steep fall in the GDP growth rate in the first quarter of 2020-21; it will reduce...

-The Indian Express While the over 3% agriculture growth in the first quarter factored in strong Rabi procurement, with high-price realisations getting reflected in the output numbers, fresh data from mandis indicate a slide in the prices of the intercrop produce — horticulture, milk and poultry etc. The rural sector may have held out the only sliver of hope amid the broader collapse in the first-quarter GDP numbers but there are fresh...