Amid the ongoing farmer protests at Delhi s borders against the three farm Acts, a discussion paper presented at a National Dialogue on Indian Agriculture in 2030, organised by NITI Aayog and Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), has said that farmers need to be paid on the same day either in cash or electronically before the delivery of their produce in a trade area (which is classified as an area outside the jurisdiction of a regulated APMC under the new acts) to lower the possibility of disputes and also eliminate the chances of going to a sub-divisional magistrate for settlement. It also called for better oversight and regulation for trading on an electronic platform as facilitated by the Acts which could be in the form of some agency or intermediary that could facilitate transactions between farmers or aggregators with the buyers.
It s Time Agricultural Production Kept Pace With Indiaâs Changing Food Preferences
Going forward, processed foods, with both low and high levels of secondary processing, offers significant potential for non-farm jobs, and equally makes agriculture remunerative.
Representational image. Photo: PTI
India takes pride in producing surplus food-grains, oilseeds, spices, milk, fruits and vegetables.
Many a time, due to a large supply of agricultural produce, market prices crash, leaving the farmers out in the cold. Low bargaining power, lack of storage infrastructure and inadequate cold storage facilities in the designated APMC mandis or nearby make it challenging for the farmers to receive a fair return for their produce.
How Much of India s Agricultural Produce Is Wasted Annually? Food loss takes place from the farm up to the retail level. It is equally important to address losses to make farming remunerative.
Representational image. Photo: Asian Development Bank/Flickr CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Agriculture01/Jan/2021
Note: This is the first in a two-part series. In Part 2, we will discuss the losses incurred by government agencies in the storage of procured commodities.
The agitation by India’s farmers on Delhi’s borders has completed one month and the sixth round of talks two days ago may have provided a window of reconciliation.
However, the more contentious issue of repeal of the three farm laws and legal guarantee for minimum support price (MSP) stills remains on the table.
It’s M.P., not Haryana or Punjab, which reaped the benefits of MSP the most
December 23, 2020
MSP is not an economically efficient×
The protest against the Centre’s newly introduced farm laws is loudest in Punjab and Haryana, where the MSP mechanism is robust, benefiting wheat growing farmers. However, government data shows that Madhya Pradesh farmers have steadily taken over wheat growers in Punjab and Haryana to reap benefits of MSP in the last five years.
Data from rabi marketing seasons (RMS) 2016-17 to 2020-21 shows that 47,58,350 farmers from Madhya Pradesh availed of the wheat procurement much higher than the 44,56,516 farmers from Punjab and 37,30,443 farmers from Haryana.