-The Hindu Move after meeting with manufacturers A day after fertilizer producers announced a sharp 46% to 58.33% hike in prices citing higher raw material costs, the Central government intervened on Friday to ensure a rollback even though Fertilizer Prices are no longer regulated. Minister of State for Chemicals and Fertilizers Mansukh Mandaviya said prices would remain unchanged for now, after a ‘high-level’ meeting was held with the major fertilizer companies. Opposition parties had...

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...

-The Hindu With protests becoming catalysts for anti-authoritarian struggle, the air is ripe for new visions of rural emancipation Those familiar with the systematic attack on agriculture in South Asia over the last decades will not be surprised at the ongoing farmers’ protests in India. It could have been Pakistan, where farmers protesting for support prices were beaten up and arrested in Lahore only a month ago, or Sri Lanka, where shortages...

-Society for Social and Economic Research The economic reforms which were started in 1991 shifted the focus of fertilizer policies away from playing a leading role in building the fertilizer industry and ensuring the availability of fertilizers at affordable prices to farmers. Under the neo-liberal policy framework, reducing the fiscal burden of fertilizer subsidies and the foreign exchange burden of fertilizer-related imports became the overriding concerns of the state.  Interestingly, the post-liberalisation...

-Centre for Science and Environment * Niti Aayog vice chairperson Rajiv Kumar releases the report, which provides the real picture of organic farming in India: only 2 per cent of India’s net sown area organically farmed, and a mere 1.3 per cent of farmers registered to do organic farming * Organic and natural farming must be upscaled to make Indian agriculture sustainable, says the report * Needs to be turned into a mass...