Media Monitor
Agriculture Industry
An MSP guarantee won’t solve the problems of Indian farmersedit
Farmer agitations against the three farm bills passed by Parliament continue in different parts of the country. Their concern is largely that the proposed Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020 (FPTC) will make the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) mandis irrelevant. These concerns are valid, given the experience of states that have diluted or abolished APMC mandis. But a related concern, at least among farmers in Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, is also the fear that the new law will reduce the scope of minimum support price (MSP)-led operations. Although not shared by farmers in many other states, it has led to demands by major political parties for the government to guarantee MSP ...
Cooperative societies to directly procure paddy in four districtsedit
Cooperative societies in the State will start procuring paddy, it was decided on Thursday.
The societies will directly procure paddy in four districts. This arrangement will ensure that the farmers get the price for paddy — ₹27.48 per kg — on the same day and that they are protected from exploitation by mill owners, Minister for Cooperation Kadakampally Surendran said after a high-level meeting attended by Food and Civil Supplies Minister P. Thilothaman, Water Resources Minister K. Krishnankutty, and Cultural Affairs Minister A.K. Balan and senior officials.
Redesigning Agricultural Extension during pandemicedit
COVID-19 pandemic is a global emergency and it is badly impacting the population across the globe. India is also facing the crisis due to this lethal virus. Many new agricultural issues are arising due to COVID-19 pandemic. If proper measures are not taken timely then the food security crisis can arise. In India there is dire need to minimise the impact of COVID-19 on the livelihood security of small and marginal farmers. So far there is adequate supply of fruits, vegetables, foods, meats and eggs but there can be food shortage in future. During the lockdowns the restrictions were imposed on the movements of the people and transportation.
Nakodar’s Bir Pind offers ‘powerful’ solution to straw menaceedit
To all those farmers not convinced with the idea of in situ techniques of handling paddy straw, Bir Pind residents in Nakodar have a message: Give us the paddy straw and we will readily pay you Rs 1,350 per tonne for it.
The village panchayat has been using stubble for power generation for the past few years. Using 250 tonnes of stubble to produce 6 MW daily, the panchayat says it needs more stubble to the keep the plant running round the year. Kewal Singh, who manages the plant, says: “We need 75,000 tonnes of stubble to run the plant throughout the year. But we do not get more than 30,000 tonnes of stubble.”
New farm reforms bring ease of living for Indian farmers: Ministeredit
“The new farm legislation is a revolutionary new opening for the farming community, particularly for the farmers living in remote areas and border areas, who are faced with constraints of inaccessibility and lack of transport. The new arrangements will open up alternative options for them,” Singh said.
Many of the farmers in the past, Singh said, stored their crop after harvesting and waited for some middleman to pick it up and carry it to the market because they did not have sufficient means or resources for that. However, he said, under the new arrangement, the farmer will be able to avail the option of arranging a buyer through different sources or even entering into a contract agreement ...
Indian Agriculture Needs an Urgent Data-Centric Revamp and Rebootedit
Here’s a fun experiment. Want to compare the procurement of paddy in the Kharif Marketing Season (KMS) 2020-21 (October-September) and the corresponding procurement in 2019-20? It’s not possible because the Food Corporation of India’s (FCI’s) website provides data of procurement as on a certain date but not the data on the same date in the previous year. You can get the figure of total procurement in KMS 2019-20 but that does not help to decipher the progress this year.
Looking for data of procurement of pulses and oilseeds by Nafed? Helpfully, the Nafed website depicts photographs of procurement of pulses in AP, Gujarat, Karnataka, MP, Rajasthan, Telangana but it does not provide any data on quantity procured by Nafed, ...
PM Modi invites Canadian businesses to invest in education, farming, manufacturing sectorsedit
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday hard sold his government’s latest labour, education and agriculture reforms, saying they will make doing business in India easier as also give farmers the right to choose their market.
With its vibrant democracy, political stability and business-friendly policies, India offers an unparalleled investment destination for foreign investors in the field of agriculture, manufacturing and education, he said in his keynote address to the ‘Invest India 2020’ meeting through video conferencing.
Towards a new deal for Indian farmersedit
When the stimulus package was announced in May 2020, many raised questions on the immediate viability of the measures in the current economic scenario. The package, though it guaranteed medium-to-long-term benefits, was criticised for not addressing the basic issues of farmers—including the loss they suffered due to the lockdown intensifying the monopoly of local traders, not receiving fair remuneration for their produce and the lack of seed capital facilities.
Govt. Policies
States can reap benefits of farm reformsedit
The recent farm sector reforms undertaken by the NDA government are described by many as Indian agriculture’s 1991 moment, and rightly so. One may wonder, if that is indeed the case, why are the farmers protesting? In India, any reform is invariably met with resistance. The economic liberalisation of 1991 too triggered protests.
Then Prime Minister Narasimha Rao and Finance Minister Manmohan Singh, architects of the reforms, were accused of selling the country to the IMF. Three decades later India has grown to become the fifth largest economy in the world and, in the process, many million citizens have escaped poverty. Similarly, the agri reforms, if implemented properly, has the potential to catapult Indian agriculture ...