-The Indian Express Fertiliser makers rule out reduction in DAP rates, despite exhortations from Centre. Union Chemicals and fertilisers minister Ananth Kumar has stated that companies have “agreed” to slash maximum retail prices of non-urea fertilisers like DAP (di-ammonium phosphate) and MOP (muriate of potash) by Rs 2,500 to Rs 5,000 per tonne, even as plantings for the ongoing kharif season have picked up on the back of a good monsoon. But it...
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Pulse of the matter: Manufacturing a dal crisis, short-changing both farmer and consumer -Yogesh Pawar
-DNA Wondering about the plight of the rural population facing successive droughts which has to buy pulses, South Asia Network for Dams, Rivers and People (SANDRP) laments how no benefit of the price hike is reaching actual pulse farmers. While most link the current tur (pigeon pea) dal crisis with raging market prices, storage issues, hoarding and economics, a new study highlighting the making of the crisis - by South Asia Network...
More »How healthy is the soil?
-The Financial Express Prime minister Narendra Modi has done well to launch a soil health card scheme, from Suratgarh in Rajasthan, which is slated to cover 14 crore farmers in the next three years. Soil health cards are an important component of agriculture reform since they help impress upon the farmer the damage done to the soil by excess use of the heavily-subsidised urea in comparison with other fertilisers. While the...
More »A new menu -Ajay Chhibber
-The Indian Express ONE of the late R.K. Laxman's best cartoons from the mid-1960's portrays a smiling food minister looking out of a window at a heavy monsoon downpour saying, "This year we can tell the Americans to go to hell." Fifty years ago, a good monsoon meant that that year, India was not dependent on food aid and wouldn't have to go hat in hand to the Americans for food...
More »After petrol and diesel, Modi government may deregulate urea -Harish Damodaran
-The Indian Express After petrol and diesel, the Narendra Modi government is looking next to deregulate urea. In the works is a three-year plan to decontrol the maximum retail price (MRP) of this fertiliser - currently fixed at Rs 5,360 a tonne or Rs 268 per 50-kg bag - alongside permitting duty-free imports sans any canalisation or restrictions, and credit the subsidy directly into the bank accounts of farmers. Urea imports now...
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