-Livemint.com Farm economist and NITI Aayog member Ramesh Chand on the urgency of agricultural market reforms to meet the target of doubling farm incomes by 2022 New Delhi: Apart from staging protests in Delhi, farmers must make themselves heard in state capitals as well to resolve issues outside the central government’s control, farm economist and NITI Aayog member Ramesh Chand said. In an interview, he spoke of the urgency of agricultural market...

-Hindustan Times The design of large injections of public funds for India’s agriculture economy needs to be informed with rigorous evaluations on what is effective for higher farm productivity. A wage subsidy for farm-labour is one modification that needs an evaluation, to generate evidence to inform how the MGNREGA policy generates employment when there is need, but without stress to farm production Indian agriculture is witnessing a period of complex socio-economic distress,...

-The Hindu We need to revisit the credit policy with a focus on the outreach of banks and financial inclusion Since Independence, one of the primary objectives of India’s agricultural policy has been to improve farmers’ access to institutional credit and reduce their dependence on informal credit. As informal sources of credit are mostly usurious, the government has improved the flow of adequate credit through the nationalisation of commercial banks, and the...

-The Hindu Business Line The dilution of government intervention in the form of minimum support prices, procurement and public distribution is undermining agricultural production in the country Farmer movements and farm loan waivers in different States have driven home the fact that the viability of agriculture is under challenge. This is surprising, since the comprehensive framework for reviving agricultural production, introduced in response to the agricultural crisis in mid-1960s, is in principle...

-Livemint.com In India, 9 million people left farming between 2001 and 2011 largely due to distress, not because industry invited them, says Shyam Khadka, India’s representative at the FAO Shyam Khadka, India’s representative at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, says more Indians are moving out of agriculture due to distress and not because the manufacturing sector is inviting them. In an interview, Khadka calls for converting food...