In its 2014 election manifesto, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), among other things, promised to "take steps to enhance the profitability in agriculture, by ensuring a minimum of 50% profits over the cost of production". In his 2018-19 Union budget speech too, the Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley informed the Parliament that the 2014 election manifesto of the BJP had stated that the farmers should get at least 1.5 times the...

Just a few days ahead of the Kisan Mukti March in Delhi NCR, the provisional results of the Agriculture Census 2015-16 became available in the public domain. The report, among other things, highlights the long-term problems affecting Indian agriculture including fragmentation of land holdings (particularly the marginal and small ones) and shrinking average size of farm land. The provisional results of the latest Agriculture Census reveal that at the national level...

A recent report by the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) enlightens one about the state of farmers' income and indebtedness in 2015-16. Entitled NABARD All India Rural Financial Inclusion Survey 2016-17 – in short NAFIS 2016-17 – the report says that between 2012-13 and 2015-16 the average monthly income for agricultural households grew by around 39 percent. One may recall that the Key Indicators of Situation Assessment Survey...

-Down to Earth While the Modi cabinet claims that land rent is included, calculations suggest otherwise The Narendra Modi cabinet made a big ticket announcement of increasing the minimum support price (MSP) of 14 kharif crops on Wednesday (July 4). Farmer agitations all across the country in the past few months have been focused on demanding that MSP be increased so it is at par with 1.5 times the cost of...

-The Hindu Clause on listing ingredients dropped. A group of Indian pesticide manufacturers says that the proposed Pesticides Management Bill, which is likely to be finalised this month, will harm both farmers and the domestic industry by not making it mandatory for the active ingredients of pesticides to be revealed in the registration process. “The draft Bill will allow importers to register readymade products without registering the active ingredients,” said Pradip Dave, President...