-TheWire.in Going forward, processed foods, with both low and high levels of secondary processing, offers significant potential for non-farm jobs, and equally makes agriculture remunerative. India takes pride in producing surplus food-grains, oilseeds, spices, milk, fruits and vegetables. Many a time, due to a large supply of agricultural produce, market prices crash, leaving the farmers out in the cold. Low bargaining power, lack of storage infrastructure and inadequate cold storage facilities in the...

-The Tribune With APMC markets heading towards a collapse, the new set of reforms is aimed at encouraging corporatisation, with big business moving into agriculture, storage and marketing. As the experience of US/Europe shows, when unregulated markets become dominant, small farmers are the first to be pushed out of agriculture. Reiterating what former US Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz (during Ronald Reagan’s rule) had declared: “Get big or get out,” Sonny Perdue, US...

-The Indian Express While the over 3% agriculture growth in the first quarter factored in strong Rabi procurement, with high-price realisations getting reflected in the output numbers, fresh data from mandis indicate a slide in the prices of the intercrop produce — horticulture, milk and poultry etc. The rural sector may have held out the only sliver of hope amid the broader collapse in the first-quarter GDP numbers but there are fresh...

-The Indian Express The dairy industry's problems will only intensify with animals calving and production going up in the coming months Amroha (Uttar Pradesh): India’s Grand Festival Season takes off next month, starting with Rakshabandhan (August 3), Janmashtami (August 12), Ganesh Chaturthi (August 22) and Onam (August 31), followed by the nine-day Navaratri culminating in Dussehra (October 25), Diwali (November 14) and Chhath Puja (November 20). It is also the season for...

-The Indian Express As farmers take to dumping their milk on roads and stopping milk supply to urban areas, dairies blame the COVID-19 pandemic and the frequent lockdowns as the reason behind the recent price corrections. Milk prices are again in the news and this time the low realisations at farmer ends have brought them on the streets. Dairy farmers in Maharashtra have started a series of protests from Monday against the...