-Newsclick.in "The recent changes in GST will not benefit primary producers or consumers who are already reeling under high inflationary pressure," said Ashok Dhawale. Coming down heavily on introducing the Good and Services Taxes (GST) on dairy products, the farmers' organisations on Saturday said that it would prove to be a “death knell” for small dairies and farmers who have been barely managing the rising input costs.  Ashok Dhawale, President, All India Kisan...

-NITI Aayog Working Paper, ISBN: 978-81-953811-7-3 Abstract -  The importance of agriculture in an economy usually declines as it climbs the development ladder. Raising agriculture productivity has been known to be an important precursor. Labour productivity in agriculture can either be increased by higher land productivity or higher land availability per farmer and mechanisation. In India, however, the dramatic increase in land productivity through industrial farming has caused severe environmental damage and...

-Economic and Political Weekly The food systems approach proposes reducing food loss and waste as a potential solution to achieve food and nutritional security. This is formalised in the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. Despite the issue receiving such ubiquitous recognition, systematic efforts to measure and address FLW are absent in India. Our calculations show that one-sixth of agricultural production, accounting for one-tenth of the gross value added in...

-Down to Earth Eligibility threshold for FPOs should be reduced or support provided to meet the criteria, experts feel Farmer producer organisations (FPO) figure prominently in government policies and the ambitious plan to double farmers’ income by 2022. But funds remain elusive for these bodies, according to a recent analysis.  Just 1-5 per cent of FPOs have received funding under central government schemes introduced to promote them in the last seven years, the...

-The Tribune A major hurdle to increasing exports is the decades-long neglect of export market infrastructure, which doesn’t meet the importing countries’ standards in terms of quality, quantity and other attributes such as food safety norms. India lacks an export-oriented strategy for agricultural commodities to establish itself as a regular supplier to international markets due to ad hoc measures such as a ban on exports or increase in tariffs off and...