-Livemint.com The ongoing reforms won’t help if they remain deprived of market access and suffer low demand Earlier this week, as part of the package for Aatmanirbhar Bharat, the Cabinet approved the proposals for agricultural marketing reforms announced in May by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman. The government has approved the The Farming Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Ordinance, 2020, along with amendments to the Essential Commodities Act. It has also...

-The Hindu The reforms in agricultural marketing are no more than reiterations of earlier pronouncements The announcement of reforms in agricultural marketing by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in May, has been hailed by some as the “1991” moment for agriculture. While it does not mean much on the ground, it has successfully managed to deflect attention from the pittance offered by way of fiscal support to the agricultural sector, as a part...

-Hindustan Times India has moved from a food-scarce economy to a net exporter of food. However, food production does not guarantee food security. Affordability is what matters. New Delhi: The government has announced major agricultural policy changes as part of the economic package it has unveiled in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. These include deregulation of farm foods from the Essential Commodities Act (ECA). Farmers have also been allowed to sell...

-The Indian Express Third tranche of COVID-19 economic package: Not only can farmers sell to anyone and anywhere, but traders and processors, too, will be able to freely buy, stock and move any quantity of agri-produce within the country. Barely seven months after imposing limits on the maximum quantity of onion any wholesaler or retailer could keep, the Narendra Modi government on Friday announced what may turn out to be a defining...

-IdeasforIndia.in In this post, Sudha Narayanan provides a sense of current bottlenecks in the supply chains of food and agricultural produce, and makes recommendations for government action to get these back on track quickly. A critical fallout of the lockdown following the novel coronavirus pandemic has been a combination of confusion, uncertainty, and anxiety for farmers and consumers alike as to what lies in store in the coming weeks. There are reports from...