-Down to Earth Nirmala Sitharaman's Budget has all the ingredients to deepen India’s farm crisis These are desperate times for India. Rural unemployment was at a 45-year-high while consumption expenditure of rural families fell 9 per cent between 2011-12 and 2017-18, according to a report by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), which the government never released but got leaked to the media in November 2019. Between 2011-12 and 2015-16, the income of farmers...

-The Hindu Business Line While proposals on agri-warehousing and viability-gap funding are positive, MGNREGA cutbacks could have been avoided The Economic Survey had a full chapter on agriculture and food management issues, highlighting the role of agricultural GDP; Minimum Support Price (MSP) regime, mechanisation of agriculture, farm credit, crop insurance, agri research and education, including in allied sectors such as livestock and fisheries, food processing and agricultural trade, besides rationalisation of food...

-Press release by Alliance for Sustainable & Holistic Agriculture (ASHA) dated 1st February, 2020 New Delhi, February 1st 2020: A thorough analysis of the Budget shows that even though the Budget speech spoke much about Agriculture and Rural sector and a 16-point program, the allocations for the Rural Economy were in fact slashed in this Budget compared to previous year. The Budget allocation for Agriculture, Allied sectors and Irrigation in 2020-21...

-The Indian Express The FM’s other ideas for agriculture, especially on Zero Budget Natural Farming (ZBNF), which she repeated this year, need to be tested before it becomes a national policy. In her Budget speech, Nirmala Sitharaman spelled out sixteen measures to reboot agriculture and re-affirmed the Modi government’s resolve to double farmers’ incomes by 2022. Agriculture is categorized by her as “Aspirational India”. All these sixteen measures are broadly in the...

-Press released by All India Kisan Sangharsh Coordination Committee (AIKSCC) dated 1st February, 2020 Delhi, February 1st 2020: Budget fails to increase rural demand and purchasing power which would have boosted the economy - instead, the Budget only boosts the profits of big corporates and MNCs, said AIKSCC. When the crying need in India’s economy is to increase the demand and purchasing power in rural areas, and hence rural incomes, the...