-The Tribune With policy-backing, subsidies and availability of easy credit, farmers are being pushed to buy more machines. Punjab has five times more tractors than required. As more technological gadgets and machines are promoted, farmers are increasingly sucked into a debt cycle, while equipment manufacturers are laughing all the way to the bank. At a time when farmers across the world are struggling to recover their cost of production, an Oxfam report...

-Newsclick.in Agri expert Devinder Sharma says today, as in the past, commodity trading, massive speculation and unfair terms of trade are behind rising food prices. As India battles food price inflation, Devinder Sharma, a well-known trade and agriculture expert, explains why Indian policymakers should boost farm incomes to revive the economy. “If farmers, comprising 50% of the country’s population, were to receive a higher income through a guaranteed MSP, it would create...

-The Tribune Experts urge the government to be cautious on wheat export, suggest an upper cap, say traders dictating markets New Delhi: Wheat production in the country is down due to “early summers”, the government’s procurement has reduced and the prices of ‘atta’ and byproducts like bread, rusks and biscuits are rising by the day. While the government is calling increasing exports as “beneficial” for farmers, experts are advocating “caution”, including imposing...

-The Tribune While many of the big defaulters have escaped abroad, why is it invariably a farmer (or a small borrower) who is left to face ill-treatment and injustice in the loan recovery process? While the big defaulters are treated with kid gloves, farmers are always treated with a different yardstick, as if they are children of a lesser god. WHILE the Punjab State Cooperative Agricultural Development Bank (PADB) has issued arrest...

-The Tribune In India, there is a concerted campaign to discredit the arhtiya, building the case for bringing in agri-business companies. There is certainly a need to regulate the middlemen, but the American experience shows how the consolidation of the meat industry, leading to market concentration in the hands of a few companies, is making it difficult for livestock farmers to survive. WHILE Indian policy makers and economists haven’t drawn any lessons...