Media Monitor
Agriculture Industry
Safeguards for agri land, farmers keyedit
The Karnataka cabinet’s decision to amend the Land Reforms Act to enable non-agriculturists to buy farm land irrespective of their income from other sources is a welcome move as long as enough safeguards are put in place to ensure that the provisions are not misused by real estate sharks and speculators.
Maharashtra: Long road ahead Farmers, experts cautious, hopeful about farm produce marketing reformsedit
Last month, just a week before the Union government introduced far-reaching agricultural marketing reforms, in Nashik’s Vani region, farmer leaders had gathered to demand immediate payment for a batch of onions sold at a local mandi by a farmer. The trader had handed over a post-dated cheque for 20 days later. Eventually, local leaders had to threaten a protest.
“The Agricultural Produce Market Committee’s (APMC) near-complete control over the farmers’ ability to market their produce is a big disadvantage. That’s why the alternative to the APMC system, now promised by the Union government’s three ordinances, are a welcome change, but with riders,” said Hansraj Wadghule-Patil of the Shetkari Sangharsh Sanghatana in Nashik.
Maharashtra: Despite good monsoon forecast, farm credit offtake dull as farmers report hurdles in getting fresh loansedit
Despite Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray’s instructions to banks to facilitate fresh farm credit including for farmers who haven’t been able to avail the Maha Vikas Aghadi government’s promised waiver of outstanding dues owing to pandemic-related delays, agriculturists across the state are experiencing difficulties in accessing fresh loans as sowing season kicks off. Simultaneously, notwithstanding the promise of a good monsoon, disbursal of agricultural credit in Maharashtra has taken off to a very slow start.
Milking the Planet: How Big Dairy is heating up planet and hollowing out rural communitiesedit
A new study claims global corporations increased milk production by 8 per cent in 2015-17, pushing several family-owned farms out of business and left a significant carbon footprint.
The report called ‘Milking the Planet: How big dairy is heating up the planet and hollowing rural communities” by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) says corporations have left several small dairy farmers with mounting debts and declining farm incomes in four major dairy producing regions—Europe, the US, New Zealand and India.
Will the govt’s agri reforms seed change for farmers?edit
For years, Dnyandev Hon travelled 20 km with his produce in a rented vehicle, twice a month, to the Kopergoan Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) mandi in Maharashtra. On some days, he even travelled about 200 km when he needed to sell his produce—onions, wheat or soyabean grown on his 1.5 hectare farm—at the Pune APMC mandi.
“The involvement of middlemen didn’t allow us to get a fair price for our produce. It was painful to see that all our hard work and sacrifices had no value, with the middlemen pocketing 50 to 60 percent,” recalls the farmer, adding that sometimes they were unable to recover even the transportation costs.
Will India’s Contract Farming Ordinance Be a Corporate Lifeline for Agriculture?edit
Of the three agriculture-related ordinances promulgated on June 5, 2020, the most predictable was ‘The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Ordinance, 2020’.
Put simply, it provides a legal basis to the existing practice of contract farming in India’s agriculture and allied sectors.
In 2018, the Union Ministry of Agriculture circulated a model law on contract farming. It was called ‘The State /UT Agricultural Produce Contract Farming (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2018’. The Ordinance draws from this model Act.
How farmers in Punjab are sowing seeds of hopeedit
The missing helping hand, which was a firm push from the regime in Punjab, cleaned up the procurement process and enhanced minimum support price. With this, a few of the farmers in Punjab are dumping the water guzzler paddy crop to sow cotton during this Kharif season. Along with paddy, some farmers also dumped the guar crop in the Abohar, Mansa and surrounding regions.
Summer crop sowing speeding up as monsoon covers half of Indiaedit
Indian farmers are set to speed up the planting of summer crops as annual monsoon rains have covered more than half of the country and delivered more rainfall than normal, a weather department official and an agriculture analyst said on Tuesday.
Why farm subsidies in India are far lower than in rich countriesedit
Developed countries, including the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and EU, have been attacking India on the support it offers its farmers. They have been seeking a cut in India’s de minimis entitlement under the WTO’s Agreement on Agriculture (AoA).
Why are these developed countries irked by the support the Indian government offers its farmers? Do they not support their own? The queries call for some number crunching.
A BusinessLine analysis of the numbers showed that the per-farmer Amber box entitlement for India is a small fraction of that of developed nations. (In WTO terminology, subsidies are identified by ‘boxes’ — Green for ‘permitted’, Amber for ‘slow down; needs to be reduced’, and Red for ‘forbidden’.) For instance, while an ...