This is not a new problem. Narendra Modi’s first year after the 2014 election was marred by the Dal scam, which resulted in prices of legumes touching Rs 200/kg. Now let’s look at February 2024, food inflation touched 8.66% due to costlier vegetables. 

'Without an MSP, farming won't sustain anywhere. If MSP doesn't become a guarantee, there will be mass rural migration. Youngsters from Haryana are trying to find work in foreign countries because there are no jobs or income in rural areas,' said a farmer at the rally.

The chickens have come home to roost: the effects of  a string of mismanaged wheat policies have now further been exacerbated by the erratic weather.

The objective of the KMC is to go “beyond the recommendations of Swaminathan Commission in the light of challenges arising out of the growing corporate control on the supply of farm inputs resulting in the rising cost of production for farmers and on the markets for agricultural produce leading to the loss of incomes from farming”.  

'Sugarcane farmers are burdened with debt and no government has been able to solve our problem. Today, my family survives because I sell milk. We are in debt because of growing cash crops. I can’t even imagine the fate of farmers who grow non-cash crops,' said a farmer from Haryana's Karnal.

By linking the Kisan Credit Card to price floors and crops as collateral, the government can ameliorate the agrarian distress by investing in an agrarian programme for supply management.

For the past six months, farmer groups have been organising all over India to reiterate the demand for MSP and other agrarian issues. A new coalition was emerging between the north and south.

Sweet sorghum may be able to replace the sugarcane crop in water-scarce situations and help meet demand for sugar and ethanol production.

If you do not want to imperil your nutrition in the coming years, then it is about time we prioritise food inflation as the top election priority.

In the agriculture sector, the gross value added recorded only a 1.2% in the second quarter of this fiscal year, down from 2.5% in the July-September quarter of 2022-23.

It’s not only our lungs but perhaps our brains that have become fogged. We have failed to see that historically, stubble burning contributes only 6% to the pollution, yet the public is quick to make the farmers the scapegoats, and not the policymakers.  

What is needed is transparency on food and weather data, and stricter control on agri-processors and food warehouses, so that India doesn’t get trapped in a food speculation trap again. 

So if we look at India's agri-import scenario it is fair to conclude that Canada has a major influence on the lentil and edible oil security of India. A report suggests Canada may have slowed down exports of the former to India.

“We are not saying make the wheat rate Rs 10,000 per quintal – but you can support the farmers through other ways like medical insurance, free education to our children, etc. Right now the wealth gap is increasing very much. And we must try and decrease it.”

What explains the government's knee-jerk sugar export ban?

For over three and a half decades, C.C. Culver has been the driving force behind the conservation and re-wilding of the quaint rural high desert village of La Madera, New Mexico.

The government, in an effort to prevent a repeat of the 2015 dal crisis, has been carefully managing the food economy through export and import bans and custom duties. But a recent government order concerning masoor, tur and chana dals has raised eyebrows.

Himachal Pradesh's apple economy has suffered an estimated loss of over Rs 1,000 crore. However, it is not just climate change that has badly hit the state's apple economy.

India’s personal goals, especially, seem to have been steamrolled in favour of US policy.

The IMD may have predicted normal rainfall for September, but the government’s aggressive ban on rice exports and other custom duties on vegetables and other food products clear point to another reality. Our policy makers are deeply concerned about the imminent food crisis.