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.
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.
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
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.
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?
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.
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%.
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.
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.
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.
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
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 fully delicensing dairy Production And Significant PDS reforms to Allowing BT Cotton, the Farm sector saw many significant steps taken in the Vajpayee years.
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.
Speaking at the 37th foundation day celebrations of NABARD, the union finance minister, Arun Jaitley, gave a good food for thought to the audience when he said, “if there is any area in the economy where we can give example
Rather tHan MSP, for better prices getting the markets right by overhauling the agri-marketing infrastructure and associated laws presents a better solution.
The e-nam platform only caters to 7% of the Indian farmer population, and handles only about 2% of the total value of agricultural output of the country
From Plate to Plough: In the last four years, agri-profitability fell rather than increased; and FCI paraphernalia expanded and deepened rather than getting reformed and shrinking
But important thing to note in OF was that it was driven largely by small holders, and AMUL model ensured 75-80% of the price paid by milk consumers goes to farmers.
