From plate to plough: Sowing paddy, reaping smog
To curb NCR air pollution from stubble burning, the govt should incentivise Punjab and Haryana farmers to switch from paddy to corn.
Agrarian crisis: Fertiliser reforms are key, not zero-budget natural farming
The fertiliser prices, then, will be market-determined, ensuring their efficient usage, and stopping their diversion to non-agri uses as well as to neighbouring countries.
Remembering Arun Jaitley’s contribution to agri-policies
The political stalwart also had a keen agri-sense, and understood that the highest pay-off from economic reforms is now to come from agriculture
Why solar power is the only option to double farmers’ income
Calculations suggest that using 'solar trees' to generate solar power on farmers' land is the only way to double farmers' incomes by 2022
Empower farmers by streamlining subsidies through JAM trinity
The government re-started some almost dead plants (Gorakhpur, Ramgundam, etc) that produce urea at more than $400/tonne.
Harvesting water: Technology vs policy
Lack of effective regulation and policy of cheap or free power supply for irrigation have intensified freshwater crisis beyond technological redemption
Budget 2019: Why FM Sitharaman should have expanded PM-KISAN scheme to cover fertiliser, power subsidies
Union Budget 2019 India: PM-KISAN should have been expanded to cover fertiliser and power subsidies
Explained: Modi’s Bt cotton connection and why his govt needs to wake up on GMO
WIth Bt cotton, India gained about $67 bn in forex from extra exports of cotton & cotton yarn, and savings in imports, over FY03-FY17, compared to business as usual.
What Modi needs to do to spur agri-trade
Today, India spends roughly 0.7% of agri-GDP on agri-R&D and extension together. This needs to double in the next 5 years. The returns are enormous
Why Modi must now sow agri-marketing reforms
If PM Modi can do this shift from price policy to income policy, and reform the current agri-marketing system, it will be a fundamental structural reform in agriculture with high pay-offs in the years to come.
From doubling farmers income to higher MSPs, had BJP over promised?
Apart from talk of doubling farmers' income and higher MSPs, the BJP had promised fast-track action on 99 irrigation projects and FCI reforms. None of this has happened.
Cow and cane: Will they become PM Modi’s pain?
Farmers, who were promised a much better deal in the 2014 BJP manifesto, feel they have been taken for a ride as they are finding it difficult to retain their existing income levels
Bold promises to reform agri-markets missing from BJP, Congress manifestoes
If India achieves a 4-5% growth in agri-GDP on a sustainable basis, it would need to export aggressively lest it creates a glut at home, adversely affecting farmers’ incomes.
Global Hunger Index: The unfinished agenda of people’s welfare
Can any political party promise in its manifesto that, in the next 5 years, India will RANK among the 50 least-hungry countries in the Global Hunger Index?
Farm subsidy to loan waivers: A race to compensate farmers for their losses
Despite last ditch attempts by election-minded political parties to atone for farmers’ losses, these are not a substitute for the structural reforms that are needed.
Why budget relief a drop in the ocean for farm distress
The schemes for cow protection and fisheries are steps in the right direction, but they don’t solve the farmers’ current problems
From plate to plough: Over Rs 45 lakh crore plundered from farmers
Until India structurally reforms its agri-economy, a stable income policy for farmers is required, for at least the next five years
Farm distress: MSP, loan waivers vs direct income support
MSPs or loan-waivers cannot reach more than 20-30% of peasantry and distort the market much more than direct income support policies
A race to the bottom: Is there a better way to help farmers?
The marginal farmers, who constitute 68.5% of peasantry, actually take more than half of their loans from informal sources at interest rates that range from 24-36%.
Agrarian crisis: What PM Narendra Modi can learn from KCR to help farmers
Professional bodies like CACP suggesting hiking msp to 1.5 times a2+fl costs or others touting doubling-of-farm-income without examining their practicality is worrying.
From plate to plough: Why parties prefer freebies to investments in election manifestoes
Raising the rate of growth of farmers’ incomes from 3.6% to almost 13% by 2022-23 is akin to promising them the moon and taking them for a ride
From plate to plough: Decoding Maharashtra’s never ending water woes
Cost ratios are highly inflated to justify starting several projects and hardly any ex-post analysis is done to see whether what was promised gets delivered at that cost.
More nutrition in wheat, rice: Is Modi govt up to bio-fortification to move from food to nutritional security?
Grain production plummeted from 89.4 million metric tonnes (MMT) in 1964-65 to 72.4 MMT in 1965-66. India became heavily dependent on PL 480 food aid from US and underwent a ‘ship-to-mouth’ crisis.
From plate to plough: How state can support farmers in a smarter way
While recently releasing the book, Supporting Indian Farms the Smart Way by Ashok Gulati, Marco Ferroni and Yuan Zhou, Arun Jaitley remarked that India needs a good blend of investments and subsidies in its agriculture policy
Maharashtra’s MSP diktat sets the stage for chaos, will leave farmers in the lurch
Forcing traders to buy agri-produce at MSP will leave farmers in the lurch as traders may not be there to buy and the state certainly can’t buy all the produce.
From plate to plough: Atal Bihari Vajpayee was a big agriculture reformer too
From fully delicensing dairy Production And Significant PDS reforms to Allowing BT Cotton, the Farm sector saw many significant steps taken in the Vajpayee years.
How doubling farm income just got even tougher
NABARD presented a gift to the nation on August 16, 2018, when it released results of its NABARD All India Rural Financial Inclusion Survey (NAFIS). Among other things, the Survey estimates 2015-16 farmers’ income levels.
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