-The Hindu Business Line If mandi boards surpass the agent network and support trade, farmers will stand to benefit immensely This could be the right time for the Centre to nudge States to make their Agriculture Produce Market Committees (APMCs) play a more active role in primary market trade. If the private sector engages in direct procurement from farmers now, the Crowding in mandis can be checked effectively. This is imperative in maintaining...

-CaravanMagazine.in In the budget unveiled in July, the finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman ambitiously claimed that India’s economy would hit $5 trillion by 2025. In the weeks that followed, the Central Statistics Office revealed that the gross domestic product growth rate for the April–June quarter fell to a six-year low of five percent; the Reserve Bank of India cleared a surplus transfer of Rs 1.76 lakh crore to the union government; and...

-The Indian Express The income transfer scheme was the highlight of the budget. But its success will need deft manoeuvring. Like in each of the previous two years, the run-up to the budget this year was rife with fears of significant fiscal slippage if the government caved in to political compulsions. And like in prior years, these fears turned out to be exaggerated. The decline in fiscal deficit ratios has indeed...

-The Hindu Steps like limited procurement, boosting productivity and consolidating land holdings can help reduce agrarian distress Recently, there has been active discussion on the strategies addressing farm distress. There are media reports that the ‘interim Budget’ may focus on the farm sector among other things. Agrarian distress, in the present context, is mainly in terms of low agricultural prices and, consequently, poor farm incomes. Low productivity in agriculture and related supply...

-Down to Earth Hounded by cow vigilantes and trade restrictions, farmers in Uttar Pradesh's border areas abandon their unproductive cattle in Nepalese villages creating havoc there Residents of Semri village in Uttar Pradesh's Sitapur district drew a plan for "invasion" on April 2, 2018. They called a meeting of farmers and agriculture labourers to take a call on the stray cattle menace. With the state closing down illegal slaughter houses in...