-TheWire.in Despite knowing the problem, both the state and central governments have failed to address the crisis that UP’s potato farmers are facing. Devi Singh (46) grows potatoes in the rabi season in Saras, a village of 1,200 people in Mathura, part of Uttar Pradesh’s potato belt. In 2017, he suffered massive losses as the price of potatoes in the wholesale market fell well below the cost of production. Last Thursday, he...
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Agri Ministry wants tax exemption for FPOs
-The Hindu Business Line Women farmers face the brunt; GST adds to their woes New Delhi: The Agriculture Ministry has written to the Finance Ministry seeking income-tax exemption for farmer produce organisations (FPOs), particularly for those that are registered as farmer producer companies (FPO) under the Companies Act. “These FPOs were brought in to negotiate the problems that are faced by cooperative societies. So they are naturally eligible for all the benefits that...
More »Ryot Empowerment: Giving effective voice to rural producers through FPOs
-The Indian Express Farmer producer organisations have truly taken off. Now’s the time to create their own lobbying platform. In the summer of 2011, as the managing director of the Small Farmers’ Agribusiness Consortium (SFAC), an autonomous society under the Union Agriculture Ministry, I addressed a group of Uttar Pradesh government officials in Lucknow. My hosts politely sat through my presentation and near-evangelical pitch, as I pushed the idea of promoting farmer...
More »From Plate to Plough: Seize the crisis -Ashok Gulati & Shweta Saini
-The Indian Express Government has the opportunity to rein in food inflation on a sustainable basis. In his Independence Day speech, Prime Minister Narendra Modi counted his government’s achievements. Bringing down inflation from double digits to below six per cent was emphatically mentioned as one that brought relief to the aam aadmi. Without doubt, we witnessed moderation in the overall consumer price index (CPI) and wholesale price index (WPI) levels in the past...
More »How Do We Combat Droughts?
-Economic and Political Weekly Agriculture cannot be revived without a different approach to water, soil, crops and research. For the second year in succession, rainfall in the monsoon season has been less than normal. As many as 302 out of the 640 districts in the country have been declared drought-hit and the impact of the drought is the severest in nine major states of south, central and east India. It is striking...
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