-The Hindu Business Line Procurement of the excess output vis-a-vis a normal year, rather than open-ended purchase, is a viable option A bountiful harvest that implies an increase in output may not always increase the nominal income of the farming sector, which is subject to the behaviour of input and more particularly output prices, which may sometimes move sharply. There can, therefore, be years in which there is a sudden and sharp...

-The Indian Express First-ever comprehensive study pegs produce trade losses in mandis from demonetisation at 7-15%. Demonetisation led to the value of farm produce traded in mandis across India collapse by nearly 15 per cent within a week of the decision, with these losses averaging 7 per cent even at the end of 90 days, according to a just-published Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR) working paper. The study, which crunches data...

-Livemint.com Tractor sales have gone up in a year which has seen farmer protests in several states for remunerative crop prices and farm loan waivers, amid lingering effects of demonetisation and GST implementation New Delhi: Domestic tractor sales rose to a record in the first half of the fiscal year, but economists are hesitating to interpret it as a sign that the farm economy has finally turned the corner. Tractor manufacturers sold 363,071...

-The Statesman The ongoing flood situation in several parts of peninsular India has left people confused. Just a few months ago, the states were declared drought-hit with a severe drinking water crisis. Yet, images of the 2015 floods in Chennai are still fresh in one’s memory. Reports of the recent floods in Bangalore and Mumbai poured in even as the region was declared to be facing the worst drought in recorded...

The phenomenal growth in foodgrain production witnessed in the 2016-17 crop year will not repeat this year. Early prediction by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare shows that the kharif foodgrain production in 2017-18 may likely to fall by 2.8 percent as compared that in the previous year. The kharif foodgrain production is expected to decline from 138.5 million tonnes in 2016-17 to 134.7 million tonnes in 2017-18. Readers...