-Livemint.com For the first time during the tenure of the present government, overall inflation of food articles is negative, implying a decline in prices Last week the India Meteorological Department (IMD) presented its first forecast for the monsoon this year. The forecast at 97% of the long period average (LPA) suggested yet a third year of normal monsoon rains, following 2016 and 2017. This should have ideally brought cheer to farmers struggling...

-Down to Earth More than creating financial crunch for upcoming sowing season, cash crunch is impacting the prices at which farmers are selling their produce While the Union government is promising that cash crunch in the market would end soon, the farmers have already started feeling the pinch badly. The fears of demonetisation have come back for them. They are in soup because not only is this the harvest season, but also...

-The Indian Express Raising agricultural exports requires the government to unburden policy of consumer bias. A balance should be struck between meeting the needs of food-insecure consumers and income-insecure farmers. The Agriculture Minister, Radha Mohan Singh, recently tweeted about the government’s resolve to increase the value of the country’s agricultural exports to $100 billion by 2022-23. The Dalwai Committee Report on doubling farmers’ incomes also talked of a similar target. It said,...

-The New Indian Express Something remarkable happened when the farmers came marching to Mumbai recently. Instead of greeting them with hostility, Mumbaikars welcomed them with affection, food and water. This change in attitude was triggered by the farmers’ extraordinary discipline and their efforts to ensure minimal disruption to the Mumbaikars’ routines. Even hard-boiled journalists acknowledged, for a brief moment, urbanites had realised  our farmers and adivasis were indeed facing difficult times. The...

-Financial Express If the government implements the assured minimum support price at one and a half times the production cost, as promised, it would jack up consumer prices of jowar and distort the market dynamics of the “poor man’s cereal”. Besides, the measure would also dampen exports, analysts warn. At 150% of the cost (A2+FL), the MSP for jowar for the next season could be at least 37% higher than the...