Never mind wishful thinking by the government and RBI. Food will never be cheaper than what it is today. Not this year. Or in future. The reason is simple. Growing food in India has become extremely expensive. Crops are pricier even before they reach the market and face the pulls and tugs of rising local demand and exports. The farmer’s single biggest cost now is labour. Farm labour wages have doubled...
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Bhalia farmers gear up to oppose chemical plant
Farmers who grow the well-known Bhalia wheat variety in the southern Ahmedabad district are getting ready to resist plans for a chemical park in their premises — a project they had fended off 13 years ago. A public hearing for the Bhal Industrial Park, slated to house 500 chemical units among a total 712 units, will be held on Friday. Kantri Makwana, a farmer from Pishavada, a village which falls within a...
More »Sharad Pawar wary of Sonia Gandhi's big food security plan by Sreejiraj Eluvangal
The National Advisory Council (NAC), led by Congress president Sonia Gandhi, may have suggested doubling food subsidies to keep an electoral promise, but the country’s food and agriculture minister, Sharad Pawar, is not amused. Pawar has expressed frustration at the NAC’s suggestion to provide subsidised food to 75% of the population. “It (the NAC proposal) reminds me of an old AICC (All Indian Congress Committee) resolution when I was a young...
More »Maharashtra farmers demand higher price for cotton
Farmers from Vidarbha and Marathwada regions will hold Maharashtra's first 'Kapus Parishad' (Cotton Conclave) here Oct 26 where they will demand higher prices for cotton, an activist said here Sunday. Organised by NGO Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti (VJAS), the conference will seek the government's intervention in increasing the prices of raw cotton from the minimum support price (MSP) of Rs.3,000 per quintal to Rs.4,500 per quintal. 'Cotton is the biggest cash crop...
More »Shortage of migrant labour but Punjab’s own farm hands are 48% underutilised, says study by Amrita Chaudhry
Economists’ report says tractors are used for just 178 hrs a year and electric motors are overused That Punjab faces an acute labour shortage each paddy season is a known and established fact. But not many know that 48.66 per cent of the total ‘family labour’ — members of a farmer’s family — available for agriculture remains underutilised in the state. A study of the resources employed in Punjab agriculture throws up...
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