-The Indian Express Centre must make transparent efforts to push exports consistently and not follow the stop-go policy emanating from price controls for the Indian consumer market. The flashpoint between the agitating farmers and the central government is essentially rooted in the mismatch between the supply and demand for the wheat crop in India. The genesis of the current state of affairs stems from policies initiated over half a century ago when...
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Farm bills: Politics now threatens to complicate the process -Ajay Vir Jakhar
-The Indian Express An opportunity has been lost in the lackadaisical handling of the issue. When the establishment ignores the historical context and the emotional component underlying any debate, mass protests can erupt to potentially shape the future. The people of Punjab would not have wanted a confrontation with the Union government, neither would I want to put it so bluntly, but around us, agitated farmers, with a strong common purpose, are...
More »Covid-time demand helps whittle down FCI grain stocks -Harish Damodaran
-The Indian Express The gap between the current and year-ago stocks, too, has narrowed down from over 15 mt to 1.5 mt between June 1 and October 1. Covid-19 may have unleashed all-round economic devastation, but has also turned into an opportunity for whittling down the Food Corporation of India’s (FCI) massive grain mountain. At 68.49 million tonnes (mt), the total wheat and rice stocks in the Central pool as on October 1...
More »Indian Agriculture Needs an Urgent Data-Centric Revamp and Reboot -Siraj Hussain
-TheWire.in Good data is key to informed policymaking. So why isn't it taken seriously? Here’s a fun experiment. Want to compare the procurement of paddy in the Kharif Marketing Season (KMS) 2020-21 (October-September) and the corresponding procurement in 2019-20? It’s not possible because the Food Corporation of India’s (FCI’s) website provides data of procurement as on a certain date but not the data on the same date in the previous year. You...
More »Explained: Why it’s an underestimate to say only 6% farmers benefit from MSP -Harish Damodaran
-The Indian Express The actual number could be anywhere between 15 per cent and 25 per cent. “Only 6% of Indian farmers benefit from minimum support prices (MSP)”. So widely-quoted is this figure — especially in the context of the recently-passed Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act — that it has become a factoid or even truism. What is, isn’t counted The apparent source of the 6% figure is the Shanta...
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