In its 2014 election manifesto, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), among other things, promised to "take steps to enhance the profitability in agriculture, by ensuring a minimum of 50% profits over the cost of production". In his 2018-19 Union budget speech too, the Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley informed the Parliament that the 2014 election manifesto of the BJP had stated that the farmers should get at least 1.5 times the...
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Minimum support price: Unkept promises on cost mitigation, bad formula to determine MSP compound farm woes -Angarika Gogoi
-Firstpost.com Farmers across India are sceptical about the promised benefits of the minimum support price (MSP) promised by the government for their kharif crop. In a press release, the government announced that the MSP would be set at 50 percent over the cost of production and vowed to double farmers’ incomes by 2022. As Amrinder Singh Punia, a farmer and general secretary of the Punjab Agricultural University Kisan Club, points out, “Government...
More »Sharp garlic price drop leaves Mandsaur farmers with a bitter taste -Sanjeeb Mukherjee
-Business Standard Farmers wait for the Bhavanter sale window to close in the next few weeks as they believe prices would increase after that, like in the case of soybean Pipliyamandi (Mandsaur): "A few years ago, we used to say, if someone took a trolly full of garlic to the mandi, he might end up buying a new tractor on his way back home. But now it seems even the tractor that...
More »Why do farmers go marching? -Aarati Krishnan
-The Hindu Farm distress is increasingly being triggered by excess output and falling prices, but policy fixes are yet to address this Why are Indian farmers perpetually in revolt? The question has been raised by many after the recent farmers’ march to Mumbai and simmering rebellions across the States in recent years. No doubt, agriculture is one segment of the economy on which vote-conscious governments haven’t skimped on outlays. Over the years, Central...
More »Is direct benefit transfer really a panacea for the rural poor? -Sanjiv Phansalkar
-VillageSquare.in Given the complex and varied situations in rural India, the results of the direct benefit transfer method are so far mixed at best and debilitating at worst, as seen in the subsidies for farm equipment and fertilizers Direct benefit transfer (DBT), a system through which government programs transfer funds directly to bank accounts of beneficiaries, is hailed as a major intervention that is expected to cut a whole lot of misdirection...
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