-Hindustan Times The Narendra Modi government’s new agenda for the crisis-ridden farm sector is being geared towards achieving the single goal of doubling agricultural incomes — a legacy of its first term in office. Prime Minister Modi had ambitiously promised a 100% jump in farmers’ incomes between 2017 and 2022, but farmers have been hobbled by unprofitable sales and even negative returns on some crops, as farm produce continue to sell below...

-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...

-The Hindu Business Line If regulation turns supportive and the RBI mandates banks to lend against the electronic negotiable warehouse receipts (eNWRs), they may soon take off Two weeks ago, I was in Suryapet district of Telangana. Here’s a short story of an English-speaking farmer from there, who greeted me with “good afternoon’ as I wished “namaskaram”. Venkateshwara Rao hails from Chinna Nemila village in Maddirala tehsil. He has a five-acre land on...

-The Hindu Issues such as levy on warehousing, agri-project imports pose a challenge With the introduction of Goods and Services Tax (GST) — India’s biggest reform in the tax structure — the government has succeeded in moving a step closer towards making the country a unified common market, leading the nation’s economy towards growth and sustainability. India’s fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector has grown consistently over the past three years, reaching over...

-Firstpost.com Farmers across India are sceptical about the promised benefits of the minimum support price (MSP) promised by the government for their kharif crop. In a press release, the government announced that the MSP would be set at 50 percent over the cost of production and vowed to double farmers’ incomes by 2022. As Amrinder Singh Punia, a farmer and general secretary of the Punjab Agricultural University Kisan Club, points out, “Government...