-The Indian Express It is important to evaluate the consequences of the Centre’s agriculture policy. With elections around the corner, it’s too late for a course correction of the farm sector, but it’s an opportune time to document the unintended consequences of half-baked policies for the next five years. Otherwise, the momentum of existing policies will continue to feed rural economic misery. Agriculture GDP growth plummeted just as India’s agricultural trade surplus,...

-Livemint.com Roots of disagreement lie in how farm support is calculated under WTO, with US blaming India for under-reporting subsidy given for wheat and rice Bengaluru: Farm subsidies seem to have become a major flashpoint in the escalating global trade war. In May, India came under attack from the US for its minimum support price (MSP) policy for foodgrain. India hit back, along with China, to demand that developed nations give up...

-PTI The US has alleged that India is providing massive subsidies to its farmers producing rice and wheat and said that other countries need to be concerned about New Delhi's "trade distorting policy". Chief Agricultural Negotiator Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) Gregory Doud made the comments during a Congressional hearing Thursday. "Every rice- or wheat-producing country around the world should be concerned about the trade effects of India's trade distorting domestic...

-The Tribune Incentivises ethanol produce to cut crude oil dependence New Delhi: Aiming to reap electoral dividend in the upcoming elections, the government on Wednesday approved a new umbrella scheme to roll out its hiked MSP for farm produce under “Pradhan Mantri Annadata Aay Sanrakshan Abhiyaan” (PM-ASHA) for which it has earmarked Rs 15,053 crore. It has also decided to incentivise ethanol production in a bid to reduce crude oil dependence at a...

-Economic and Political Weekly Are the ongoing debates on solutions to crop residue burning marred by policy confusion? While bio-compressed natural gas and ethanol producers want farmers to collect paddy straw from their farms to be supplied to plant locations, another lobby of machine sellers wants the straw to be processed in the fields itself. Would the success of one commercial proposition lead to the failure of the other? Please click here...