-The Financial Express The criteria for fixing MSP of pulses should be sensitive to prevailing market prices The agricultural price policy, which aimed at providing a remunerative and stable price environment to farmers through MSPs and obligatory procurement by government agencies, has helped India overcome massive food shortages to emerge as a net exporter of food. Though the Terms of Reference (ToR) of the Agricultural Prices Commission requires that policy-induced incentive should...
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The Importance of Being 'Rurban': Tracking Changes in a Traditional Setting -Dipankar Gupta
-Economic and Political Weekly A categorical distinction is facing rough weather--that between urban and rural. If we take just agriculture, there is so much of the outside world that comes in not just as external markets but as external inputs. Further, many of our villages barely qualify as rural if we were to take occupation alone. So the earlier line that separated the farmer from the worker in towns is slowly...
More »MGNREGA failure adds to Vidarbha’s suicide woes -Kavitha Iyer
-The Indian Express Mumbai: Despite MGNREGA’s rich possibilities, Kumar notes that the Maharashtra government has slashed allocations under it to Rs 800 crore in 2014-15. Even as it stares at unprecedented crop loss from back-to-back droughts followed by untimely rains/hailstorms, Maharashtra has seemingly given the short shrift to MGNREGA, which could have gone some way in mitigating the current crisis. And significantly, its potential has been least leveraged in Vidarbha, the region...
More »It's not all gloom and doom in agriculture: Innovation is leading the way for these farmers -Vivian Fernandes
-FirstPost.com "Spray 50 parts per million of Gibberellic ralic acid, 6BA and 0050 grade potassium on leaves. Apply muriate of potash at the rate of 25 kg per acre." Almost every morning, Sanjeev Mane sends messages like these in Marathi to his 5,100 followers on Whatsapp in Maharashtra and the border areas. The post above, of 20 April, was advice to farmers on preparing their cane crop for the summer season. Cheap Internet...
More »An uncertain Hobbesian life -Feroze Varun Gandhi
-The Hindu India's small farmers have been struggling for centuries now and they need social and governmental action to change their future Of India's 121 million agricultural holdings, 99 million are with small and marginal farmers, with a land share of just 44 per cent and a farmer population share of 87 per cent. With multiple cropping prevalent, such farmers account for 70 per cent of all vegetables and 52 per cent...
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