-TheWire.in Good data is key to informed policymaking. So why isn't it taken seriously? Here’s a fun experiment. Want to compare the procurement of Paddy in the Kharif Marketing Season (KMS) 2020-21 (October-September) and the corresponding procurement in 2019-20? It’s not possible because the Food Corporation of India’s (FCI’s) website provides data of procurement as on a certain date but not the data on the same date in the previous year. You...
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Centre objects to ‘tinkering’ with MSP to verify if farmers burnt Paddy stubble
-The Indian Express The top court also issued notices to the Centre and Punjab, Haryana and Delhi governments on a plea by Class XII student Aditya Dubey and law student Aman Banka, which sought directions to provide free of cost stubble-removing machines to small and marginal farmers to check the menace. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta Tuesday objected to a proposal to withhold a part of the Minimum Support Price (MSP) to verify...
More »Explained: Why it’s an underestimate to say only 6% farmers benefit from MSP -Harish Damodaran
-The Indian Express The actual number could be anywhere between 15 per cent and 25 per cent. “Only 6% of Indian farmers benefit from minimum support prices (MSP)”. So widely-quoted is this figure — especially in the context of the recently-passed Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act — that it has become a factoid or even truism. What is, isn’t counted The apparent source of the 6% figure is the Shanta...
More »Farm bills: India’s fields are on fire -Devinder Sharma
-The Telegraph The tearing hurry with which agriculture market reforms have been pushed through, without even consulting farmers, has resulted in huge farm protests in Punjab and Haryana At a time when I see euphoria among mainstream economists over the new set of agricultural reforms, media reports say that the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices has observed that only 12 per cent of India’s Paddy cultivators were able to sell their...
More »Sowing seeds of doubt: Farm Bills leave farmers, commission agents and workers worried -Vikas Vasudeva
-The Hindu Farmers in Punjab are worried about the implications of the three new farm bills that will allow them to sell their produce directly to private players. Vikas Vasudeva reports on the concerns of farmers, commission agents and workers despite the government’s assurances that the legislation empowers them In June 2020, 55-year-old Shingara Singh in Fatehpur village in Patiala, Punjab, sold his spring season maize crop at ₹700-₹800 per quintal, far...
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