-Hindustan Times Unless consumer preferences shift to climate resistant crops, goals associated with the policy won’t materialise After a gap of three years, the Karnataka government has reintroduced ragi/finger millet in its public distribution system (PDS). To feed the PDS system, the government has announced a procurement price much higher than the market price and introduced bonuses. With interventions on the sides of both production as well as consumption, the objectives are...
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Will bumper crop derail India's pulses deal with Canada? -G Chandrashekhar
-The Hindu Business Line The global pulse trade is in a tailspin. After living in a comfort zone provided by India in the form of a large ready market for long years, pulse exporting nations — many of them cultivating the leguminous crop with India as the primary target market — are now forced to grapple with new ground realities. To be sure, not only has India, the world’s largest producer, processor,...
More »Why your arhar dal cravings just may need to be capped, but not soon -Nanda Kasabe
-The Financial Express Pune: While the sowing area of pulses is up 3.5% across the country, it has gone down by 19.22 % for arhar (tur) , according to latest estimates by the government. The data indicates sowing area of 93.36 lakh hectares for pulses against 90.30 lakh hectares same time last year. For arhar , the area is 29.32 lakh hectares compared to 36.30 lakh hectares last year. Tur sowing...
More »Maharashtra: Can pledge loan scheme help tide over 'tur' crisis? -Abhiram Ghadyalpatil
-Livemint.com Experts say a government-sponsored pledge loan scheme could still help Maharashtra tide over the tur crisis and provide relief to farmers Could Maharashtra government and the Centre have mitigated Maharashtra’s tur (pigeon pea) crisis by facilitating and encouraging pledge loans? Yes, say farm sector experts, bankers, warehouse industry officials and former government officials. Pledge loans are loans secured by farmers from banks against their farm produce deposited at a warehouse. Timely government intervention...
More »Save the pulse farmer, here's how -Ashok Gulati
-The Financial Express The minimum that the govt can do is to remove all restrictions on a free market for pulses Last year, roughly at this time, the price of tur dal (pigeon pea) in the retail market was hovering around R180/kg. Prices of other pulses were not far behind. They were all spiraling up due to back-to-back droughts during 2014-15 and 2015-16. Production of all pulses had plunged to 16.5 million...
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