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The illusion the “good days are coming” will not last long if the current regime opts for a free-fall towards a free market economy rather than structured liberalisation.

Correct weather advisory, occasional consultations, professional soil testing and some understanding of issues from the farming perspective is all that the farmer wants.

Will there be a farmer representative on the new avatar of the Planning Commission and not a farm economist who is good with figures but has never ever felt the pain of being a farmer?

India ignores science when dealing with both climate change and food security/GM crops. The first needs a top-down approach and achieving food security needs a bottom-up approach.

Poor understanding and co-ordination between different central ministries and a complacent attitude around WTO over the last decade has caused immense suffering for the farmer.

Every rupee invested in agricultural R&D gives an eight-fold return to the rural economy and is the most cost-effective way to reduce poverty.

Higher retail prices for food do not translate into profits for farmers because of higher production costs and marketing bottlenecks and the misgovernance of trade.

The global population of 7.2 billion by 2050 means that the world must produce as much food in the next 50 years as it did in the last 10,000 years and in the face of climate change.

Credit remains a problem for small and marginal farmers. Advances with a credit limit of less than ₹2 lakh declined from 82.6 per cent in 1990 to 44.3 per cent in 2010 of the total.