-Down to Earth Every day, 54, mostly developed countries give nearly $2 billion in support to their farmers The sites of the farmers’ protests on the borders of Delhi are a microcosm of Indian peasantry — rich and poor, small and big, irrigated and rainfed and supported and not supported. The voices from these sites have now merged into one clarion call: Guarantee government support to farmers by legalising the minimum support...
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Research shows intermediaries’ role is misunderstood. Local market realities more at play -Shoumitro Chatterjee, Mekhala Krishnamurthy, Devesh Kapur and Marshall M Bouton
-ThePrint.in Researchers associated with Pennsylvania University’s India study centre looked at agricultural markets of Bihar, Odisha and Punjab. They found that intermediaries are a rational response to the dominant structure of Indian farming. Most Indian farmers have tiny farms that yield meagre incomes. They face a multiplicity of risks, which jeopardises even these low incomes. These twin pressures are particularly acute in eastern India, manifest in the two states that were the...
More »In Punjab, the centrality of the mandi system -Shreya Sinha
-Hindustan Times The mandi has been a major rallying cry for the protests in Punjab. Its importance to agricultural life cannot be overstated The stand-off between the government and the farmers on the new farm laws shows no signs of easing. For a long time, the government insisted that the protest was led by middlemen and large farmers only in Punjab, and to some extent Haryana, who were concerned about losing their...
More »The only option: farmers' protest -Jaideep Hardikar
-The Telegraph HINTERLAND: Our structural problem — small and marginal rain-fed sustenance farms, over 80 per cent of India’s agriculture sector — remains unaddressed Let’s understand the chronology: before the 2014 general elections, Narendra Modi promised farmers that he would comply with the Swaminathan Commission formula to arrive at a minimum support price for farm produce: a 50 per cent profit over the production cost. Post elections, he reneged on the promise...
More »The roots of the agricultural crisis run deep -Himanshu
-The Hindu Declining agricultural incomes and flagging state support to agriculture are some of the key structural issues The standoff between farmers and the government continues even after a few rounds of discussion and more than a fortnight of protest at the Delhi border by the farmers. The latest proposal by the government indicates its willingness to amend the three agriculture-related Acts passed in September. On the contentious issues of registration of...
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