-Down to Earth The government’s flip-flop on stockholding limits does not help pulses’ pricing issues The Union government’s decision on July 2, 2021, to impose stock limits on pulses till October 31 has once again fuelled the long-held perception that the country’s food policies are not even consistent, let alone being relevant. On June 5, 2020, the Union government issued the Essential Commodities (Amendment) (ECA) Ordinance, 2020, which was later legislated into an...
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Are we witnessing depeasantisation in Indian agriculture?
The newly released Situation Assessment Survey of Agricultural Households and Land and Livestock Holdings of Households in Rural India (NSS 77th Round) establishes the fact that the farm households are more and more relying on wage incomes instead of 'net incomes from crop cultivation' for their livelihoods. In Marxian lexicon, proletarisation (a term that we can loosely use for depeasantisation) refers to the process in which the farmers/ tillers are...
More »All that ails pulses in India - Vivek Mishra, Shagun Kapil and Raju Sajwan
-Down to Earth The past three decades have seen stagnation in acreage, production and productivity of pulses across the country due to a bevy of reasons that include availability of more profitable crops The primary reason behind India’s domestic shortage in pulses is stagnation of production over the past five decades. Overcoming the Pulses Crisis, a 2010 report by the Confederation of Indian Industry, states the production of pulses grew only by...
More »NREGA Sangharsh Morcha demands higher wages, more working days, employee insurance in letter to PM
-National Herald It has requested Union government to notify a wage rate of Rs 600 per day for NREGA workers and allocation of work for 150 days annually for each job card holding individual Flagging issues being faced by crores of MGNREGA workers, NREGA Sangharsh Morcha has requested the Union government to notify a wage rate of Rs 600 per day for NREGA workers and allocation of work for 150 days annually...
More »Sri Lanka’s organic farming crisis: Learning from failures -Gurudas Nulkar
-Down to Earth Sri Lanka has found itself in an economic crisis in pursuit of producing 100% organic food ‘Lankan food crisis shows perils of organic farming’. This was the headline of a column by Indian economist Swaminathan Anklesaria Aiyar column published in a national daily recently. Aiyar’s article analysed the Sri Lankan food crisis, which has been triggered by the President’s recent decision to shift from chemical to organic farming. While the...
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