-Business Standard Agricultural marketing reform should first take states on board The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has announced plans for a "national agricultural market" which would involve the integration of 585 major regulated mandis through electronic platforms over three years. Several problems in the current farm marketing system, governed by the monopolistic agricultural produce marketing committees (APMCs), might be addressed if this works: the multiplicity of mandi fees and licences...

-Deccan Herald Many of India's agricultural practices have barely changed in decades. Reform is long overdue. Nearly a quarter of a century after India launched its first big liberalising reforms in 1991, setting off a new spurt of growth, one area of the country’s economy remains hardly touched: farming. Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a 24-hour, state-run television channel for farmers in May, but has fostered no public debate about how to improve...

-Business Standard Expected delay in harvesting might keep commodities elevated for a month Mumbai: While the wholesale price index (WPI) might have turned negative primarily due to a steep decline in the prices of non-food articles, rising vegetable prices kept food articles firm in May. While drumstick prices showed a sharp rise of 130 per cent, articles of mass consumption such as brinjal, cabbage, bitter gourd and cauliflower recorded an upswing of 50...

-Frontline   The BJP-led NDA government has, in the two Budgets it has presented so far, revealed itself to be very different from the pro-farmer image that its leading election campaigner and now Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, projected. THE Bharatiya Janata Party's manifesto for the 2014 Lok Sabha election states: "Agriculture is the engine of India's economic growth and the largest employer, and BJP commits highest priority to agriculture growth, increases in...

-The Hindu Business Line   Economic Survey says Parliament can pass laws to override States' powers to create such a thing The Budget has proposed the setting up of a national agriculture market. Agriculture in the country is a State subject and thus all the States have set up Agricultural Produce Marketing Committees (APMC) to regulate the marketing of agricultural commodities. Thus, APMCs have been considered an inhibiting factor for establishment of a national...