What ails agri-food policy? Montek Singh Ahluwalia’s ringside insight
Montek Singh Ahluwalia’s ringside insight into India’s agri-policies shows, without reform on food subsidy and MSP, unlocking resources for growth will be difficult.
Budget 2020: Why Sitharaman’s budget won’t double farmers’ income by 2022
Budget 2020-21: This has been going on since the 2003 model legislation—the Agricultural Produce Marketing (APMC) Act—when prime minister Vajpayee was at the helm of affairs.
Budget 2020: Food, urea subsidy reforms must be priorities
Budget 2020 India: The budget must be transparent on, and fully account for the Food Subsidy dues to FCI. IF DBT is adopted for food and Urea subsidies, the govt can save upto Rs 50,000 crore.
Govt can save Rs 50,000 crore by reforming country’s grain management system
Reforming the country’s grain management system could save the govt Rs 50,000 crore annually, allowing the FM to fund infra investments while maintaining fiscal deficit.
With Sharad Pawar in govt, it’s a golden chance for Maharashtra to frame an agriculture policy
Maharashtra’s farmers have been in the news quite often, and for the wrong reason: high incidence of farmers’ suicides.
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.
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Budget 2020
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- Economic Survey 2020: Fudging food and fertiliser subsidy
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