-TheWire.in Private moneylenders are a major source of loans across the region, and with the collapse of banking in rural areas, their role has only grown. Baliram Kadpe is critical of the Maharashtra government. “Farmers do not get the minimum support price [for their crops, from the state],” he says with concern. “And it is tedious for them to acquire crop loans.” Kadpe believes if the state ensures that farmers have access...
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Rural distress may lessen even as agriculture growth may stay flat -Sandip Das and Banikinkar Pattanayak
-The Financial Express The distress in rural India on account of a glut-induced crash in prices of farm commodities will likely alleviate soon as prices tend to look up, but statistical factors will keep farm-sector growth subdued in the short-term. A crash in prices kept growth in nominal gross value added (GVA) for the agriculture and allied sector above the expansion in real term in Q1FY18 for the first time in five...
More »Onion prices fall 35% after I-T raids on Nashik traders
-The Times of India NASHIK: The average WHOlesale onion price fell by 35% at the country's largest WHOlesale onion market at the Lasalgaon Agriculture Produce Market Committee (APMC) on Thursday after the income tax department carried out surveys and searches in the offices, godowns and homes of seven onion traders in Nashik district of Maharashtra. After the sudden crash in WHOlesale onion prices, farmers stopped the auction at Lasalgaon and did...
More »No quick-fix solution: Don't use packaged food to fight malnutrition, says govt -Rema Nagarajan
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Women and Child Development ministry has written to all states and union territories that there isn't enough evidence to support the use of Ready-to-Use-Therapeutic foods (RUTF) for the management of severe acute malnutrition (SAM). This is a blow to the multi-crore complex of international NGOs WHO push packaged food as a strategy to address severe malnutrition and companies that produce them. The WCD letter pointed...
More »No feel for the pulse -Ashok Gulati & Smriti Verma
-The Indian Express Prices crashed last year because there was a glut in imports during a year of record production. Government has not corrected the policy snags that led to this anomaly. Pulses are an interesting and unique commodity group in the Indian agri-food space. The country ranks first not only in their production and consumption, but also their import. Domestic absorption in recent years (2012-13 to 2015-16) has hovered between 21...
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