The Financial Express

Sandip Das’s excellent story in this paper last month, based on his visit to the Karnal mandi in Haryana, brought to light the sorry fate of the much-touted National Agriculture Market (e-NAM), the electronic portal for trading in agricultural produce launched by the prime minister in April last year. The story once again highlights the distance between policy announcements and implementation, ever the bane of developmental interventions in India.

Dainik Yashobhumi

The National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (NAFED) and NCDEX e Markets Ltd. (NeML) have signed an agreement for creating an e-platform for procurement of pulses and oilseeds across the country.

BW Business World

The Agricultural Prices Commission was set up in early 1965, to advise the government of India on a regular basis on matters related to price policy of agriculture Minimum Support Price: Minimum support price (MSP) is one of the instruments of Agricultural Price Policy (APP). APP basically means government intervention to influence agricultural productivity and/or farm input prices. The kind and degree of intervention (or the policy instruments and their objectives) vary with the stage of agricultural development.

The Financial Express

India’s agricultural exports have risen to $25 billion to take a share of 9% of its total exports—from 7.1% in 2010-11. Today, a marginal farmer from Heran, a village in Punjab, finds markets in the UK for his produce of baby corn. India ranks second in fruits and vegetables production in the world. Its exports of cereals, spices, fruits and vegetables in 2016 stood at $11.4 billion, accounting for 3.5% of global exports. India enjoys the second-largest arable land size after the US and is home to 14 agri-zones, offering a range of climates and soil conditions conducive to agri produce diversification that can address world markets successfully.

The Asian Age

An additional interest subvention of 3 per cent per annum will be available to “prompt payee farmers”. “This also implies that the farmers paying promptly as above would get short-term crop loans at 4 per cent per annum during 2017-18,” it said. In order to discourage distress sale and encourage farmers to store produce in warehouses, it said the benefit of subvention will be available to small and marginal farmers with Kisan Credit Cards for a further period of up to 6 months post harvest at the same rate as available to crop loans against negotiable warehouse receipts. The warehouses should be accredited with the Warehousing Development Regulatory Authority (WDRA), it said.

The Hindu Business Line

Ideally, the government should encourage more research in building climate smart farming solutions for small farmers like affordable greenhouses, low tunnels and the like to create more reliable income earning opportunity for small farmers. These are preventive measures. In our work at Kheyti with small farmers, we are experiencing the need and the urgency perceived by farmers to have such reliable income generating asset. This is more of a permanent and a pro-active solution. These take time to reach millions, but surely should reach every farmer like Appala Venkatesh one day.

The Times of India

The challenge is particularly urgent for Indian agriculture where productivity for crops like rice does not compare even with neighbours like China. The possibility of a further dip due to climate change will be particularly worrying as it could turn India into a major importer of milk and pulses. By 2030, it may need 65 million tonnes more of foodgrains than the expected production in 2016-17.

The Hindu Business Line

APLM rollout sought The committee also urged the Union Agriculture Ministry to roll out the Model APLM Rules so that States can make the act operational. States could upgrade existing facilities such as warehouses and silos as markets, it said. The demand for rural retail markets could be met by upgrading the existing over-20,000 rural periodical markets as Primary Rural Agricultural Markets, it suggested.