Indian Express

Budget speeches have consistently prioritised farmer prosperity with across-party consensus on the matter. How come the budget makes little difference to farm woes?

The conversation on the farm sector needs to free itself of the haunt of food shortage and radically shift to issues of nutrition and safety.

Subsidy as a percentage of the GDP has been decreasing in India. The fertiliser subsidy helps farmers grow crops at a lower cost and the consumers who pay a lower price for food.

India needs to weather the WTO storm with diligent data collection, research, documentation and superior negotiation skills.

A series of misadventures over trifurcation and a religious-political agenda followed by central and state governments have converted Punjab into a economic basket case

In order to be useful to the farmer, IMD predictions must be at the block level. Lack of accuracy and specificity render forecasts irrelevant for individual farmers.

Vested interests, including global food giants, constantly influence Indian farm policy, which is like getting GM seed manufacturers to frame food-labelling guidelines.

No government can come up with effective farm policies without listening to critical inputs from farmers and farmers cannot survive on lip service and political posturing.

A combination of world commodity trends and poor internal policies could unite farmers and be the nemesis of the incumbent government.

There is zero merit in the idea that jobs can only be created if industrialists are allowed to acquire farmers’ lands without their consent.