-Down to Earth Low returns and high risks from alternative crops among reasons past efforts failed, says report The Commission for Agricultural Cost and prices (CACP) has recommended promotion of crop diversification, favouring oilseed crops amid the global inflation in oilseeds and vegetable oils prices. Global inflation creates a structural risk as vegetable oils account for about half of India’s agricultural import, subsequently raising the country’s agri-import bill, the commission wrote in its...
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In South Asia, record heat threatens future of farming
-United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) A prolonged and deadly heatwave has hit large swaths of India and Pakistan affecting hundreds of millions of people and sparking food and energy shortages. Experts say the extreme heat is a grim preview of what the climate crisis has in store for a region home to over 1 billion people. Temperatures in India’s capital and parts of Pakistan have at times reached close to 50°C, killing...
More »How two-wheeler dreams died in the countryside -Alisha Sachdev
-Livemint.com Industry estimates suggest two-wheeler sales for fiscal year 2021-22 (FY22) will close out at 14.5 million units, the lowest volume in almost a decade. This betrays a deep distress in incomes of rural households. Mint explains the fault lines: * Why are two-wheeler sales falling? Rural demand contributes 50-60% of two-wheeler sales in the commuter segment. Price increases, rising fuel prices and unseasonal rains leading to poor crop realizations have hit the...
More »In India, What Explains Distribution Margins and Drug prices Being Linked? -Murali Neelakantan and Ashish Kulkarni
-TheWire.in A Tata Nano pays the same toll to go from Mumbai and Pune on the expressway as does a Rolls Royce. Why should pharmaceutical products be any different? On May 26, amid news reports about yet another closed-door meeting that the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA) had had with unspecified stakeholders, we were reminded of an interesting press release that the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilisers had issued in July 2021. The...
More »World’s most vulnerable now paying even more, for less food: FAO
-United Nations News Countries are expected to spend a staggering $1.8 trillion importing food they need this year; this would be a new world record but worryingly, it’s going to buy them less food, not more. That’s according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) which on Thursday suggested that for some countries, the situation potentially heralded “an end of their resilience to higher prices”. Ever-higher fixed costs for farmers of so-called...
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