-The Indian Express The actual number could be anywhere between 15 per cent and 25 per cent. “Only 6% of Indian farmers benefit from Minimum Support Prices (MSP)”. So widely-quoted is this figure — especially in the context of the recently-passed Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act — that it has become a factoid or even truism. What is, isn’t counted The apparent source of the 6% figure is the Shanta...
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Farm bills: India’s fields are on fire -Devinder Sharma
-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...
More »The men behind APMC, MSP and procurement -Harish Damodaran
-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...
More »Bharat Bandh: Nationwide farmers’ strike today, rail, road transport to be affected. All you need to know -Poulomi Ghosh
-Hindustan Times The Shiromani Akali Dal will observe a three-hour chakka jam across Punjab from 11am to 2pm in all constituencies. Over two dozens farmers’ organizations from all across the country, supported by 18 political parties including the Congress, take to the streets on Friday protesting the farm bills passed by Parliament. Punjab and Haryana will be the epicentre of the protests, though the demand for legal guarantee of Minimum Support Prices...
More »‘We did not ask for this freedom’: Voices of farmers from beyond Punjab, Haryana -Sayantan Bera
-Livemint.com * Mint spoke with farmers in different states and reports their views on the new laws that seek to liberalize India’s agriculture markets In a historic rejig, the government has enacted a new set of laws which seeks to liberalize farm trade, give freedom to farmers to sell their produce outside regulated mandis and enter into contracts with buyers at a pre-agreed price, in the hope that free markets will help...
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