Irony runs its play every year in India as food grains rot in godowns while 23 crore people go hungry every day. GOI Monitor talks to food and trade policy analyst Devinder Sharma on the issues stalking agriculture and public distribution
In a free wheeling talk with GOI Monitor, food and trade policy expert Devinder Sharma favours income support for farmers, attacks FDI and indicates that there is a smear campaign going on against the civil society
Born to the families of teachers, Nandan Saxena and Kavita Bahl always wanted to 'change the world'. Moving from English literature to mainstream journalism to independent film making, the husband-wife duo has developed a valued understanding of India's development model and how it fails us. Their film, 'Cotton For My Shroud', which focussed on suicides by cotton farmers in Vidarbha, got recognition at the 59th National Film Awards. Here they talk about their motivations, urban-rural divide, GM food and why we need to question the constructs foisted on us.
पर्यावरण मंत्रालय जल्द ही जी. एम. सरसों को मंज़ूरी दे सकता है। मंत्रालय की जेनेटिक इंजीनियरिंग स्वीकृति समिति ने 11 मई 2017 को दिल्ली विश्वविद्यालय द्वारा विकसित जी. एम. सरसों के बीज, डी. एम. एच. 11, के व्यावसायिक उपयोग की सिफारिश की थी। यदि पर्यावरण मंत्रालय इसे स्वकृति देता है तो डी. एम. एच. 11 भारत की पहली जेनेटिकली मॉडिफाइड (जी. एम) खाद्य फसल बन जाएगी। आलोचकों का सबसे बड़ा आरोप है कि परीक्षणों से संबंधित वैज्ञानिक डेटा को अभी तक गुप्त रखा गया है। जी. एम. सरसों से जुड़े बायोसेफ्टी परिणामों को जनता के बीच लाना चाहिए। सरसों सत्याग्रह के प्रोफेसर राजिंदर चौधरी बताते हैं कि इस निर्णय के खिलाफ लड़ना महत्वपूर्ण क्यों है।
BJP-led goverment came up with PM-Kisan scheme to provide Rs 6,000 annual income support to small farmers while Congress party is promising Rs 72,000 for poor families through NYAY scheme. How will these help deal with consistent farm crisis and where will the money come from? How the new government can deal with indebtedness of farmers, loan waivers. Is there a way to implement market reforms that will ensure that farmers get the minimum support price for their crops? Food and trade policy expert Devinder Sharma talks in details about these aspects, chalking out a roadmap for the next government.
As the world debates about the post-Covid economic model, farming is regaining its status as the most viable, decentralised livelihood generator. Right policies can ensure that it not only revives the economy but also acts as a carbon sink and neutralises pollution. As the biggest nature-based occupation that gives a bounty with little investment, agriculture also has the capacity to employ a large number of people. It can revive the village economy with greater possibility of equitable development
Hardikar uses his two-decade experience of reporting on rural affairs to connect the everyday life of Ramrao to policy decisions, workings of market economy and climate crisis. Every year, an insidious new factor is added to the list of old reasons compounding the problem of the peasantry. Liberalisation, loan waivers, unchecked sale of spurious agro chemicals, demonetisation, pest attacks, all leave a mark on Ramrao who is also battling personal losses.
“We will have 9 billion mouths to feed on this earth by 2050 and there will not be enough food for all of us which is why we need to make technological interventions like GM crop to produce more food.” At a time when food prices are soaring and
More than half of the farmers who harvested their crop during the national lockdown suffered a loss of production as compared to last year, found a survey of 1,429 farming households across 200 districts of the country. Around 10 percent farmers could not harvest their crop due to low market price or inability to access their land due to travel restrictions. The lockdown has also impacted preparations for upcoming sowing season for more than half (56 percent) of surveyed farmers.
Government claims the new farm laws will open up the agriculture market and help farmers get better remunerations for their produce. The protesting farmers, on the other hand, point out that they won't be in a position to negotiate with private companies in absence of a regulatory mechanism and oversight of Agriculture Produce Marketing Committee (APMC). The new laws allow traders to bypass government mandis but don't mention any regulatory mechanism or authority to monitor such transactions or agreements
An average Indian spends almost half of his/her total expenditure on food, while roughly half of India’s work force is still engaged in agriculture for its livelihood. This is why it's a cause of concern that the sector is in trouble. Falling soil fertility, over exploitation
Keshari Sahu is a happy farmer. When scanty and irregular rainfall resulted in heavy damage to the Kharif paddy crop at his village in Balangir district of Odisha last year, he decided to grow Gurjee millet on his three acre farm instead of cotton.
Growing crops had never been easy in Kashipur. Farmers practised shifting cultivation, depending on rains to produce whatever little was possible on the rocky slopes. But with onslaught of bauxite mining, large scale felling of forest trees and changing weather patterns, the going has got tougher. The region in Odisha’s Raygada district has always been in news for wrong reasons. More than 50 starvation deaths were reported from this area in 1986-87, which forced the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to pay a visit
The states of Kerala and Telangana have created cooperatives of women farmers which has not only reaped financial benefits but also ensured better social status for the members. The women got familiar with farm practices, government institutes and private agencies, market negotiations and fund management, all of which helped them overcome gender, caste and class barriers
Agriculture is the only vocation which relies on dynamics of nature. While friendly earthworms enrich the soil, abundant daily sunlight and a graceful period of showers bless you with a bountiful of food. Humans understood from very early on that to reap
In 2013, there were 2.6 million deep tubewells and/or borewells (deeper than 70 m) in India irrigating 12.68 million ha of land. However, around 12% of these borewells had either dried up or supplied less water than expected. Expenditure on borewells is one of the reasons for mounting farm debt. This is why artificial recharge of aquifers is essential. But exhaustive awareness campaigns promoting crop water budgeting and better market links for traditional crops are also required to ensure that the water saved is also used well.
Agriculture in Bihar has languished primarily because of high input costs, especially that of energy due to inadequate grid electricity supply and a high price of diesel. Rural electrification through grid supply is not happening in Bihar due to lack of public investment. Also, the existing groundwater markets are neither increasing irrigation nor achieving equity. So, there is a need for an alternative. The Bihar government launched a scheme for solar irrigation in 2008—Bihar Saur Kranti Sinchai Yojana—as a solution to the lack of adequate electricity for irrigation.
India woke up to the determination of Punjab's farmers on November 26 when national television started relaying images of the long march to Delhi border. But the movement had been gathering pace since September 25 when the 31 farmers' unions first came together to sit in protest on national highways, railway lines and major corporate outlets. From November 26 onwards, they took the protest to Delhi galvanising support from other states and sections of society
It's an open secret that agriculture in India is stagnating. The latest situation assessment survey done by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) paints a bleaker picture. Rural India has 90.2 million agricultural families with an average monthly income of just Rs 6,426. Of this earning, only 60 per cent came from cultivation and rearing of livestock; rest being from daily wages and salary. In fact, agriculture is not the principal source of income for 56 per cent of the marginal families (with less than 0.01 hectare farm).
Climate change talks are often centered on renewable energy. Nobody talks about making farming renewable. Around 50 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions are due to chemical farming. It emits carbon dioxide from burning of fossil fuel required to make chemicals. To prepare 1 kg of urea, 2 litre of diesel is burnt. When used in farms, urea produces nitrogen oxide which is 300 times more harmful than carbon dioxide for the earth. Instead, if you give the earth proper organic matter, it will give you lot of food. A 0.5 per cent increase in organic matter in the soil helps with 80,000 metre increase in moisture retention.