-The Hindu Data also show that a majority of the farmers were unaware of the Minimum Support Price regime Between 2013 and 2019, the share of agricultural households (HHs) that sold their produce in APMC mandis reduced sharply, while those that sold their produce to private traders increased significantly. Data show that a majority of the farmers were unaware of the Minimum Support Price (MSP) programme and procurement agencies. Among those who...

-CaravanMagazine.in In the cover story of The Caravan’s March 2021 issue, “Mandi, Market and Modi,” Hartosh Singh Bal reported about the Indian government’s efforts to remake India’s agricultural economy for large private players. In the following excerpt from the story, Bal traces the infrastructure that the Adani group have already built to store, transport and market agricultural produce. There has been considerable conversation around what the entry of private buyers in procurement...

-ThePrint.in From Tamil Nadu to Rajasthan, India has several indigenous water systems that have worked for centuries. As water runs out, we need to return to nature-based solutions. A 13th century stone edict, found inside the Perur Patteeswarar temple near Tamil Nadu’s Coimbatore, describes the creation of a nearby lake and lays down rules for a water-sharing arrangement between upstream and downstream regions along the Noyyal river. Starting as early as 8th...

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...

-Hindustan Times/ Livemint.com “There is an immediate need to improve Agricultural Infrastructure so that we produce more, while also conserving and processing agricultural output efficiently,” Nirmala Sitharaman said in her budget speech. The government on Monday introduced a new agriculture infrastructure development cess (AIDC) on petrol, diesel and several other imported items. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman assured it won’t place any additional burden on consumers. However, following the introduction of the cess, states...