-The Hindu Centre relaxes curbs, allows farmers to buy seeds with old Rs. 500 notes. Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley directed commercial bank chiefs on Monday to focus their attention on rural India’s cash crunch over the next 40 days, with a war chest of Rs. 35,000 crore for providing credit to farmers by December. The Centre also relaxed its demonetisation policy for high-value currency notes further by allowing farmers to buy seeds...
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Rabi sowing slows down
-The Hindu Business Line Bengaluru/ Ahmedabad: Though acreage under the main rabi (winter) crops, such as wheat, gram and mustard continued to rise, overall sowing for the season across the country has turned sluggish as cash-strapped farmers have slowed down planting. According to preliminary data released by the Agriculture Ministry, acreage under rabi crops till November 18 stood lower, at 241.73 lakh hectares, compared to 243.38 lakh ha in the corresponding period...
More »Less cash and low stocks make wheat prices climb -Harish Damodaran
-The Indian Express In wheat, the situation has been worsened by stocks with FCI — at 18.84 million tonnes (mt) as on November 1 — at a nine-year low. New Delhi: Wheat prices have spiralled, reflecting the precarious domestic stocks position and concerns over production of new crop because farmers are unable to arrange sufficient cash for cultivation operations, following the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes. Wheat was sold...
More »Prof. Abhijit Sen, economist and former chairman of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices, interviewed by The Economic Times
-The Economic Times In a chat with ET Now, Abhijit Sen, Professor, JNU, says this is a whole sector in which there are very large cash demands for production at one or two points in time and this happens to be one. Edited excerpts * The government has hiked MSPs for rabi crop. How do you see the impact of higher MSPs for output and demand for rabi playing out? The increases are normal...
More »Demonetisation: How the cash crisis can be used to tame rural commercial capital -Pravesh Sharma
-The Indian Express These enterprises — whom she broadly categorises as ‘rural commercial capital’ — enjoy privileged access to formal credit networks. In her insightful study of the working of agricultural markets in West Bengal, British development studies scholar Barbara Harris-White has documented in detail how trade in farm produce is controlled through a web of rural and semi-urban agro commercial enterprises. These enterprises — whom she broadly categorises as ‘rural commercial capital’...
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