-The Tribune The economic argument in support of market reforms, claiming that farm incomes go up when the number of farmers recedes, has turned out to be untrue. America has lost more than 5 million farms in less than 100 years, and Australia 25 per cent of its farms between 1980 and 2002. The speed at which farmers across the globe have got out of agriculture hasn’t increased farm incomes, but...

Quite often it is argued by mainstream economists that a sizeable chunk of the Union Budget every year is wasted because the Government spends that on food and fertiliser subsidies. The burgeoning size of these two subsidies relative to the entire budget as well as the gross domestic product (GDP) is often used to build the argument that economic as well as environmental sustainability of the country is at stake...

-The Indian Express To solve India’s deep agrarian crisis, more public investment and government support are needed, not the new farm laws The farmers’ movement invites us to revisit the trajectory of India’s agriculture so as to understand its real problems. Beginning in the mid-1960s, India and, especially, Punjab experienced a massive productivity boom as a result of widespread adoption of Green Revolution technologies. This transition was driven by public investment in...

-The Hindu Business Line Having recovered from their lows touched early or mid-2020, food prices are rising fast. At $574.8 a metric tonne in February 2021, the price of soyabean was 53 per cent higher than the corresponding month of 2020, when the effects of the Covid pandemic were yet to be felt (Chart 1).  Over that period, the price of maize had risen from $168.71 to $245.24 a metric tonne...

-Livemint.com Growth in exports, easing inflation, and higher manufacturing activity have lifted India to the top half of Mint’s Emerging Markets Tracker for the first time in four months India climbed five spots to attain the third position among key emerging markets in January, the latest update to Mint’s emerging markets tracker shows. Rising exports, falling inflation, and greater manufacturing activity boosted India’s rank in January although it still remains a few...