-Deccan Chronicle   The finance minister said the agricultural output of the country is at a record high and wage of farmers will be doubled by 2022.    New Delhi: The Narendra Modi-led NDA government presented the Union Budget 2018-19 on Thursday. In the last full-fledged Budget of the BJP government Finance Minister Arun Jaitley tabled a lot of proposals for the agriculture and the rural economy. For agiculture sector, the Budget 2018...

-The Hindu New Delhi: Various farmers organisations including Swaraj India on Tuesday released the Green Paper on Farmers, Farming and Rural Economy, alleging that the present government was unable to fulfil promises made to the farmers. “The present government is the most anti-farmer government in the history of India. It has failed to deliver its the promises. This includes ensuring cost plus 50% profit as the Minimum Support Price” said Yogendra Yadav,...

According to the document entitled Green Paper on Farmers, Farming & Rural Economy 2018: 4 Years - 4 Budgets: What Has This Central Government Delivered?, which has been prepared by Jai Kishan Andolan, Swaraj India, ASHA and Rythu Swarajya Vedika (published on 30 January, 2018): Far from giving farmers and farming ‘the highest priority’ during a period when they most needed the governmental support, the present NDA government has tried to...

-Business Today Social sector spending and investments in infrastructure development could be the highlights of the forthcoming Union Budget 2018-19, credit rating agency ICRA forecasts. It expects increase in budgetary allocations for social infrastructure and social security spending, such as NREGA (rural job security), food subsidy (food security), insurance schemes and welfare pensions. Larger allocations for infrastructure related to cold chains, etc., considered to boost the agricultural sector and the rural...

-Livemint.com Farmers need structural reforms, crop diversification and greater public investment rather than subsidies and price support Indian agriculture has been relatively untouched by the structural reforms that lifted incomes in other parts of the economy. Low farm productivity meant that governments tried to improve the lot of farmers through price policy. The problem is that engineering a shift in the terms of trade through higher support prices usually leads to generalized...