Harish Damodaran

On Tuesday, skim milk powder (SMP) prices at Global Dairy Trade (GDT), the fortnightly auction platform of New Zealand’s Fonterra Cooperative, averaged $3,243 per tonne, the highest since the $3,264 of August 5, 2014.

Bottled-up anger against unpaid cane dues, stagnant prices and increase in input costs is now finding expression in the fight against "kaale kanoon".

The US Department of Agriculture (USDA) on Tuesday upped its forecast of Indian wheat exports for 2020-21 (July-June) to 1.8 million tonnes (mt), as against its earlier estimate of one mt. That would be the highest ever in the last six years

Since last Wednesday, when reports of deaths of birds from the disease started coming in, farmgate prices of broiler chicken have crashed from around Rs 82 to Rs 58 per kg in Maharashtra, Rs 94 to Rs 65 in Gujarat, and Rs 80 to Rs 70 in Tamil Nadu.

FAO's global food price index has hit the highest since November 2014.

It isn’t just the bigger decline in GVA/GDP this time that is striking. Equally significant is the fact that in each of those four previous years, the primary culprit was agriculture.

Non-payment of last season’s dues and no SAP being declared for 2020-21, with more than two months of crushing over, can emerge as a potential flashpoint in the ongoing farmers’ agitation.

Set to cross all-time-high increase of $110.5 billion recorded in 2007-08.

The Centre is within its rights to enact laws promoting barrier-free trade of farm produce (inter- as well as intra-state) and also dismantling stockholding restrictions. But that can be only after the farmer has sold.

The farmer protests have led to questions being raised on the extensive cultivation of paddy and wheat, especially in Punjab. How much of these crops is grown, and what are the options for diversification?

Today, the government does not feel the need to buy much from Punjab. Economists, too, see it as an unnecessary fiscal burden.

With farmers rejecting the government’s offer and deciding to continue their protest against the farm laws, The Sunday Express meets some of the farmers camping at Delhi’s borders, and visits their families and farms back home, to find a shared concern — a sense of despair over falling crop prices.

If the stated objective behind enacting an anti-slaughter legislation is “preservation of cattle”, that message is clearly not being heeded by farmers.

Commission agents play a complex and important role in the agri economy. Their role also differs from state to state — which explains why Punjab-Haryana farmers are at the forefront of the ongoing protest.

Post 2014, two centralisations — of political and economic power — continue to reinforce each other, with profound consequences for the country and potential to define popular narrative in days ahead.

Farmers' protest Explained: These sections represent the heart of the APMC bypass legislation. Their amendment tantamounts to rollback.

The "free time" is something the government may not have fully anticipated. The timing of the capital siege and ability to stay put for at least the next few weeks could well work to the protesters’ advantage.

Farmers' protest: Much of the opposition is to just one of the three new laws. It is the FPTC Act and its provisions that are seen as weakening the APMC mandis.

Mills in the state have so far crushed 86.187 lakh tonnes (lt) of cane and produced 8.018 lt sugar at an average recovery rate of 9.30 per cent in the current season.

Mills are yet to get over Rs 5,000 crore of export assistance payments announced more than a year ago

Fertiliser companies were owed around Rs 48,000 crore subsidy dues at the start of the current fiscal.

Commodity-wise foreign trade data from the department of commerce shows exports of farm goods from India during April-September at $18.12 billion, 4.6% higher than the $17.32 billion for the first half of 2019-20.

Since 2013-14, grain storage capacity has gone up from 3-4 lakh tonnes to 13

Barauni has a new urea plant being built, refinery and power plant expansions, and a dedicated dairy for indigenous milk sweets.