-Down to Earth Lack of planning, introduction of hybrid seeds, chemical fertilisers, insecticides and weed killers are responsible for decline in pulses’ cultivation Pulses have an important place in our culture. But with imports increasing every day, they are getting too expensive for the poor. As a result, malnutrition is increasing. It is not that farmers do not grow pulses here due to lack of seeds and knowledge, but there is a lack...

-The Tribune A major hurdle to increasing exports is the decades-long neglect of export market infrastructure, which doesn’t meet the importing countries’ standards in terms of quality, quantity and other attributes such as food safety norms. India lacks an export-oriented strategy for agricultural commodities to establish itself as a regular supplier to international markets due to ad hoc measures such as a ban on exports or increase in tariffs off and...

When one of the three farm laws i.e., The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020 was enacted last year, it was argued by its proponents that the legislation would allow the farmers to sell their produce (and the traders to purchase that produce) outside the Agricultural Produce Market Committee-APMC mandis after crop harvesting. In a way, that particular piece of legislation was enacted to end the...

The newly released Situation Assessment Survey of Agricultural Households and Land and Livestock Holdings of Households in Rural India (NSS 77th Round) establishes the fact that the farm households are more and more relying on wage incomes instead of 'net incomes from crop cultivation' for their livelihoods. In Marxian lexicon, proletarisation (a term that we can loosely use for depeasantisation) refers to the process in which the farmers/ tillers are...

-United Nations Human Rights Office of The High Commissioner GENEVA 22 SEPTEMBER 2021: On the eve of the Food Systems Summit, UN human rights experts are deeply concerned that the event will not be a “people’s summit” as promised. They are worried that the Summit will instead leave behind the most marginalized and vulnerable people. According to the three human rights experts, who were involved in the Summit preparation, “The Summit claims...