-The Indian Express Investment in human capital, science and research remains the Achilles heel of Indian policy. The budget allocation for agriculture research and education has constantly declined from 0.31 per cent of the gross value added of agriculture and allied activities in 2011-12 to 0.24 per cent now Seven years of low crude prices, five years of above normal monsoon topped by good agriculture production, and everything looked positive for a...

-Down to Earth blog The distress among small farmers in India is market-driven to a large extent in both ways — too much protection (minimum support price) or too little. The question of future of Indian Agriculture has been around for some time now since the agrarian distress and crisis in the sector. It has become important in the context of the spate of recent reforms that include permitting private wholesale markets,...

-The Indian Express While Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman did not mention PM-Kisan in her Budget speech, she tried to assure farmers about the minimum support price (MSP). The Agriculture Ministry did not spend its full budget during 2020-21, leading to a reduction in the allocation in the revised estimates (RE) for the current financial year and a lower outlay for the next one. In Union Budget 2021-22, the two departments—Department of Agriculture,...

-The Hindu The methodology behind the OECD’s numbers, that suggests negative support, has pitfalls and limitations The ongoing stalemate between the farmers protesting over the recently passed farm laws and the government has sparked an interesting debate regarding the level of agricultural support. Many media reports, based on data by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), have ostensibly stated that the support provided to Indian Agriculture is extremely low or...

-The Indian Express Dushyant Dave writes: Centre's farm laws will create monopolies in agriculture production and trade, and hurt farmers. The Constitution of India is a “fundamental document”, as declared by B R Ambedkar on September 17, 1949 during the Constituent Assembly debates. To him, this document defined the powers and functions of the three organs of the state — the legislature, executive and judiciary: “…in fact, the purpose of a Constitution...