-Down to Earth Highest rice acreage in six years, more farmers in farms, a bounty monsoon and an expected bumper harvest don't enthuse farmers as their earning dips It is a piece of news that everybody would love to cheer about, except those who made this possible. The current kharif season is exceptional. In comparison to last year, over eight million more hectares of farms are under cultivation this season. There are more...
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Minimum support prices for winter crops up 5-7%
-Financial Express Robust production doesn't necessarily boost farmers' earnings. In the case of many crops, including oilseeds and pulses, the procurement levels are crucial and even the price support scheme sans procurement doesn't seem to be working on the groun The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) on Wednesday approved modest increases of 5-7% in the minimum support prices (MSP) for rabi crops for the 2019-20 season. Even as the winter sowing...
More »First time in 30 years, why NAFED faces challenge -Harish Damodaran
-The Indian Express NAFED has been tasked with purchasing all the apples that growers bring to sell at mandis in the Valley. A bumper crop, for which there would hardly be any private buyers with all the current movement restrictions, makes it all the more challenging. The National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (NAFED) has not bought a single kilogram of apples for the last three decades or more. “We did...
More »Solution to economy's woes: Boost incomes of those who will spend it best -Harish Damodaran
-Financial Express Two measures can do much to bring back price sentiment and liquidity in agricultural markets, just when farmers are set to harvest a bumper crop. The current economic slowdown began with Bharat. It has to also end with Bharat. According to the National Statistical Office’s GDP estimates for April-June 2019 released on Friday, India’s agriculture sector — which includes forestry and fishing — grew 2.04% year-on-year during the quarter....
More »Unmet farm challenge
-The Indian Express Policy still hasn’t adjusted itself to address the crisis of agricultural produce deflation. India’s agricultural output grew by hardly 2.7 per cent during the last October-December quarter. That isn’t bad, if one takes the corresponding year-on-year increases for the preceding 10 quarters; these have ranged between 4.2 per cent and 7.5 per cent. The cause for concern is that these reasonably good production growth rates in “real” terms...
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