Agriculture in India : News, Updates, Discussion & Analysis
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In one line you saying APMC Mandis will stay in another line you are saying, they will be destroyed and its good thing.
Most BIMARU state already has private mandis. Bihar abolished APMC Mandis in 2006. Average farmer income in Bihar Rs.42000/- and average farmer's income in Punjab/Haryana ~Rs.200000.
Indian new agri laws are not unique, check the outcome of similar agri laws in USA, it wiped out small farmers. Give example of successful implementation of this system around the world! Or stop bullshitting!
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Punjab already has very developed agriculture, Bihar is nowhere near period. By your example, India is better than US, because it is outperforming US in GDP growth figures since decades? What a logic!
Bihari farmers are downtrodden, subsistence farmers. You need volumes to make a difference. Which is why wheat in the US is just 1200/quintal compared to Punjab's almost 2000/quintal but the average wealth of farmers between the two is like heaven and earth.
Private investment failed in Bihar because their politics and red tape is amongst the worst in the country and farm holdings are far too small to make it viable. Plus the middle class market there is immature. To top that all off, the govt itself is extremely inefficient. For example, even if farmers want to make use of MSP through govt, the govt does not buy quickly and does not pay in time, so farmers are forced to sell to scalpers and middlemen. This is primarily because the mostly poor farmers do not have storage space and need immediate access to funds. It's just corruption overall. Punjab is unlikely to suffer from any of this.
The new reforms are needed to kick start Bihari agriculture, while also simultaneously bringing in reforms to raise the standards of living of the middle class. Without a robust middle class, agriculture cannot surive.
Otoh, with the new farm laws, Punjab can rapidly develop into a first world economy in 15 years, far more rapidly than the rest of India, which will take at least 30 years. Without the new farm laws, agriculture in India will die in just 10 years. In South India, we eat wheat imported from Australia and Ukraine, until duty was hiked to 40%.
In just a few years South India will slaughter North India in agriculture due to the import of new technologies happening right now.
Would recommend reading these articles.
‘5 states account for 78% of progress in micro-irrigation’
India’s current irrigation coverage of 48.7% of total sown area means two-quarters of the population engaged in farming are dependent on monsoon rainfall.
Among the laggards, Bihar was able to add just 86 hectares while Himachal Pradesh added 1,107 hectares. Punjab added 274 hectares. Top performer Andhra expanded micro-irrigation coverage in 186,444 hectares while Karnataka added 164,967 hectares. Gujarat stood third, bringing 143,134 hectares under the irrigation network.
World’s biggest drip irrigation project in India
To provide irrigation facilities to areas that are not even able to cultivate one crop annually, India’s Karnataka state has developed the world’s biggest automated single drip irrigation project in the Bagalkot district.
www.hortibiz.com
An estimated 5.84 TMC (thousand million cubic feet) water will be pumped out of the Narayanpur reservoir, which will then be delivered through a HDPE / PVC piping network to irrigate about 60,000 acres of farmland.
More Crop Per Drop is true for the South Indian Agriculture
More Crop- Per Drop is look like a slogan but it is true in the ear of scarcity of the water. It is also possible to sprinkle the water with drip irrigation and micro irrigation.
Where it is as of early last year.
T.N. finishes on top in micro-irrigation coverage
State govt. gives liberal subsidy in addition to doles under the PMKSY
The first place goes to Karnataka (8.16 lakh ha) followed by Andhra Pradesh (7.17 lakh ha) and Gujarat (7 lakh ha). At the all-India level, 43.71 lakh ha of lands were brought under micro irrigation in the last five years.
Otoh, this is the future of Punjab...
More crop per drop: Can Punjab arrest its slide into desertification?
The Indian Express explains why Chief Minister Amarinder Singh’s statement of aggressively promoting drip irrigation is an urgent step in the right direction.
indianexpress.com
here's some food for thought.
www.marketwatch.com
By
MARKETWATCH PHOTO ILLUSTRATION/GETTY IMAGES|, ISTOCKPHOTO
Bill Gates is now the largest owner of farmland in the U.S. having made substantial investments in at least 19 states throughout the country. He has apparently followed the advice of another wealthy investor, Warren Buffett, who in a February 24, 2014 letter to investors described farmland as an investment that has “no downside and potentially substantial upside.”
There is a simple explanation for this affection for agricultural assets. Since the early 1980s, Congress has consistently succumbed to pressures from farm interest groups to remove as much risk as possible from agricultural enterprises by using taxpayer funds to underwrite crop prices and cash revenues.
Over the years, three trends in farm subsidy programs have emerged.
The first and most visible is the expansion of the federally supported crop insurance program, which has grown from less than $200 million in 1981 to over $8 billion in 2021. In 1980, only a few crops were covered and the government’s goal was just to pay for administrative costs. Today taxpayers pay over two-thirds of the total cost of the insurance programs that protect farmers against drops in prices and yields for hundreds of commodities ranging from organic oranges to GMO soybeans.
The second trend is the continuation of longstanding programs to protect farmers against relatively low revenues because of price declines and lower-than-average crop yields. The subsidies, which on average cost taxpayers over $5 billion a year, are targeted to major Corn Belt crops such as soybeans and wheat. Also included are other commodities such as peanuts, cotton and rice, which are grown in congressionally powerful districts in Georgia, the Carolinas, Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi and California.
The third, more recent trend is a return over the past four years to a 1970s practice: annual ad hoc “one off” programs justified by political expediency with support from the White House and Congress. These expenditures were $5.1 billion in 2018, $14.7 billion in 2019, and over $32 billion in 2020, of which $29 billion came from COVID relief funds authorized in the CARES Act. An additional $13 billion for farm subsidies was later included in the December 2020 stimulus bill.
Read: How the biggest farms are getting more per acre in trade-war subsidies
If you are wondering why so many different subsidy programs are used to compensate farmers multiple times for the same price drops and other revenue losses, you are not alone. Our research indicates that many owners of large farms collect taxpayer dollars from all three sources. For many of the farms ranked in the top 10% in terms of sales, recent annual payments exceeded a quarter of a million dollars.
Farms with average or modest sales received much less. Their subsidies ranged from close to zero for small farms to a few thousand dollars for averaged-sized operations.
So what does all this have to do with Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and their love of farmland as an investment? In a financial environment in which real interest rates have been near zero or negative for almost two decades, the annual average inflation-adjusted (real) rate of return in agriculture (over 80% of which consists of land) has been about 5% for the past 30 years, despite some ups and downs, as this chart shows. It is a very solid investment for an owner who can hold on to farmland for the long term.
The overwhelming majority of farm owners can manage that because they have substantial amounts of equity (the sector-wide debt-to-equity ratio has been less than 14% for many years) and receive significant revenue from other sources.
Thus for almost all farm owners, and especially the largest 10% whose net equity averages over $6 million, as Buffet observed, there is little or no risk and lots of potential gain in owning and investing in agricultural land.
Returns from agricultural land stem from two sources: asset appreciation — increases in land prices, which account for the majority of the gains — and net cash income from operating the land. As is well known, farmland prices are closely tied to expected future revenue. And these include generous subsidies, which have averaged 17% of annual net cash incomes over the past 50 years. In addition, Congress often provides substantial additional one-off payments in years when net cash income is likely to be lower than average, as in 2000 and 2001 when grain prices were relatively low and in 2019 and 2020.
It is possible for small-scale investors to buy shares in real-estate investment trusts (REITs) that own and manage agricultural land. However, as with all such investments, how a REIT is managed can be a substantive source of risk unrelated to the underlying value of the land assets, not all of which may be farm land.
Thanks to Congress and the average less affluent American taxpayer, farmers and other agricultural landowners get a steady and substantial return on their investments through subsidies that consistently guarantee and increase those revenues.
While many agricultural support programs are meant to “save the family farm,” the largest beneficiaries of agricultural subsidies are the richest landowners with the largest farms who, like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, are scarcely in any need of taxpayer handouts.
Vincent H. Smith is director of agricultural studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington, D.C. think tank, and professor of economics at Montana State University. Eric J. Belasco is a visiting scholar at AEI.
Bill Gates and Warren Buffett should thank American taxpayers for their profitable farmland investments
Congress has reduced risk by using taxpayer funds to underwrite crop prices and cash revenues.
www.marketwatch.com
Opinion: Bill Gates and Warren Buffet should thank American taxpayers for their profitable farmland investments
Last Updated: March 10, 2021 at 6:00 p.m.By
Vincent H. Smith and
Eric J. Belasco
Congress has reduced risk by underwriting crop prices and cash revenues
MARKETWATCH PHOTO ILLUSTRATION/GETTY IMAGES|, ISTOCKPHOTO
Bill Gates is now the largest owner of farmland in the U.S. having made substantial investments in at least 19 states throughout the country. He has apparently followed the advice of another wealthy investor, Warren Buffett, who in a February 24, 2014 letter to investors described farmland as an investment that has “no downside and potentially substantial upside.”
There is a simple explanation for this affection for agricultural assets. Since the early 1980s, Congress has consistently succumbed to pressures from farm interest groups to remove as much risk as possible from agricultural enterprises by using taxpayer funds to underwrite crop prices and cash revenues.
Over the years, three trends in farm subsidy programs have emerged.
The first and most visible is the expansion of the federally supported crop insurance program, which has grown from less than $200 million in 1981 to over $8 billion in 2021. In 1980, only a few crops were covered and the government’s goal was just to pay for administrative costs. Today taxpayers pay over two-thirds of the total cost of the insurance programs that protect farmers against drops in prices and yields for hundreds of commodities ranging from organic oranges to GMO soybeans.
The second trend is the continuation of longstanding programs to protect farmers against relatively low revenues because of price declines and lower-than-average crop yields. The subsidies, which on average cost taxpayers over $5 billion a year, are targeted to major Corn Belt crops such as soybeans and wheat. Also included are other commodities such as peanuts, cotton and rice, which are grown in congressionally powerful districts in Georgia, the Carolinas, Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi and California.
The third, more recent trend is a return over the past four years to a 1970s practice: annual ad hoc “one off” programs justified by political expediency with support from the White House and Congress. These expenditures were $5.1 billion in 2018, $14.7 billion in 2019, and over $32 billion in 2020, of which $29 billion came from COVID relief funds authorized in the CARES Act. An additional $13 billion for farm subsidies was later included in the December 2020 stimulus bill.
Read: How the biggest farms are getting more per acre in trade-war subsidies
If you are wondering why so many different subsidy programs are used to compensate farmers multiple times for the same price drops and other revenue losses, you are not alone. Our research indicates that many owners of large farms collect taxpayer dollars from all three sources. For many of the farms ranked in the top 10% in terms of sales, recent annual payments exceeded a quarter of a million dollars.
Farms with average or modest sales received much less. Their subsidies ranged from close to zero for small farms to a few thousand dollars for averaged-sized operations.
So what does all this have to do with Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and their love of farmland as an investment? In a financial environment in which real interest rates have been near zero or negative for almost two decades, the annual average inflation-adjusted (real) rate of return in agriculture (over 80% of which consists of land) has been about 5% for the past 30 years, despite some ups and downs, as this chart shows. It is a very solid investment for an owner who can hold on to farmland for the long term.
The overwhelming majority of farm owners can manage that because they have substantial amounts of equity (the sector-wide debt-to-equity ratio has been less than 14% for many years) and receive significant revenue from other sources.
Thus for almost all farm owners, and especially the largest 10% whose net equity averages over $6 million, as Buffet observed, there is little or no risk and lots of potential gain in owning and investing in agricultural land.
Returns from agricultural land stem from two sources: asset appreciation — increases in land prices, which account for the majority of the gains — and net cash income from operating the land. As is well known, farmland prices are closely tied to expected future revenue. And these include generous subsidies, which have averaged 17% of annual net cash incomes over the past 50 years. In addition, Congress often provides substantial additional one-off payments in years when net cash income is likely to be lower than average, as in 2000 and 2001 when grain prices were relatively low and in 2019 and 2020.
It is possible for small-scale investors to buy shares in real-estate investment trusts (REITs) that own and manage agricultural land. However, as with all such investments, how a REIT is managed can be a substantive source of risk unrelated to the underlying value of the land assets, not all of which may be farm land.
Thanks to Congress and the average less affluent American taxpayer, farmers and other agricultural landowners get a steady and substantial return on their investments through subsidies that consistently guarantee and increase those revenues.
While many agricultural support programs are meant to “save the family farm,” the largest beneficiaries of agricultural subsidies are the richest landowners with the largest farms who, like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, are scarcely in any need of taxpayer handouts.
Vincent H. Smith is director of agricultural studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington, D.C. think tank, and professor of economics at Montana State University. Eric J. Belasco is a visiting scholar at AEI.
Not All farmers.So all farmers illiterate, no common sense, know nothing about farming which they are doing from generations, they don't know how mandis work, they have large no highly educated siblings working in private and some running their own companies but hey they still don't know how private sector works, they may have a large nos of agriculture experts, agri economic experts, agri academicians supporting farmer demands but hey they know nothing, there are examples of failure of same agriculture system even of developed countries, but thats not true and spreading lies and misled by opposition parties! Farmers are dying on roads, because they know nothing and misled by opposition!
I agree, you have a logical point!!!!
Bravoyou won
!!!
Har Har Modi, Ghar Ghar Modi!!!
Anything you want to teach me please!!!
Dude Farmers of Haryana and Punjab together constitute hardly 10% of the total. It’s outrageous how you trying hard to impose 10% on rest of 80%(considering 10% farmers of other states too support old British law)
And you are right about huge disparity bet Punjab farmers and Farmers of rest of India and that’s precisely why what is working for Punjab farmers is causing Havoc in rest of the country.
Someone please explain this gentleman the difference between US farming and Indian way of farming.
And why do you want your 46% (or US) population to be tied down to farming ?
US has othe more productive industries so small farmers move to better industries.
Is that too hard for you to understand. Does those “small US farmers” did suicide or they died of hunger and malnutrition like we see in India ?
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Why don't you stop blabbering & propaganda and Just read US report or listen to Sandeep Chaudhary to know the reality and facts? If it did not work in a country with full proof regulators and 1% farmer population, then how it will work for 46% population?It’s Bhakt dude. Not Bhakat
like I’m Shiv Bhakt.
And you are right about huge disparity bet Punjab farmers and Farmers of rest of India and that’s precisely why what is working for Punjab farmers is causing Havoc in rest of the country.
Someone please explain this gentleman the difference between US farming and Indian way of farming.
And why do you want your 46% (or US) population to be tied down to farming ?
US has othe more productive industries so small farmers move to better industries.
Is that too hard for you to understand. Does those “small US farmers” did suicide or they died of hunger and malnutrition like we see in India ?
Im far from bhakt you lazy rent-seeking bozo. You and bhakt have no real difference. Both trying to conserve patriarchy. One using religion, another using state machinery to conserve privileges.
Are you illiterate? I said, APMC Mandis will be destroyed in the long run because its inefficient. In the short term will exist.
That was the point, you idiot. BIMARU states will reach the saturated income level of Punjab/Haryana (earned 30 years back) faster
Aww..now comparing the US. Coming from a dude who believes this gem :
Even Whatsapp uncles would have better common sense. First, comprehend what's happening here then we can discuss globalization.
I'm still waiting for proof for the above para.
There is nothing parallel here. Their market structure is 50 years ahead of ours. Our average agri-land size is 2-3 hectares compared to 250 hectares of USA. They graduated from being an agricultural economy long back.here's some food for thought.
Bill Gates and Warren Buffett should thank American taxpayers for their profitable farmland investments
Congress has reduced risk by using taxpayer funds to underwrite crop prices and cash revenues.
Opinion: Bill Gates and Warren Buffet should thank American taxpayers for their profitable farmland investments
Last Updated: March 10, 2021 at 6:00 p.m.
By
Vincent H. Smith and
Eric J. Belasco
Congress has reduced risk by underwriting crop prices and cash revenues
MARKETWATCH PHOTO ILLUSTRATION/GETTY IMAGES|, ISTOCKPHOTO
Bill Gates is now the largest owner of farmland in the U.S. having made substantial investments in at least 19 states throughout the country. He has apparently followed the advice of another wealthy investor, Warren Buffett, who in a February 24, 2014 letter to investors described farmland as an investment that has “no downside and potentially substantial upside.”
There is a simple explanation for this affection for agricultural assets. Since the early 1980s, Congress has consistently succumbed to pressures from farm interest groups to remove as much risk as possible from agricultural enterprises by using taxpayer funds to underwrite crop prices and cash revenues.
Over the years, three trends in farm subsidy programs have emerged.
The first and most visible is the expansion of the federally supported crop insurance program, which has grown from less than $200 million in 1981 to over $8 billion in 2021. In 1980, only a few crops were covered and the government’s goal was just to pay for administrative costs. Today taxpayers pay over two-thirds of the total cost of the insurance programs that protect farmers against drops in prices and yields for hundreds of commodities ranging from organic oranges to GMO soybeans.
The second trend is the continuation of longstanding programs to protect farmers against relatively low revenues because of price declines and lower-than-average crop yields. The subsidies, which on average cost taxpayers over $5 billion a year, are targeted to major Corn Belt crops such as soybeans and wheat. Also included are other commodities such as peanuts, cotton and rice, which are grown in congressionally powerful districts in Georgia, the Carolinas, Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi and California.
The third, more recent trend is a return over the past four years to a 1970s practice: annual ad hoc “one off” programs justified by political expediency with support from the White House and Congress. These expenditures were $5.1 billion in 2018, $14.7 billion in 2019, and over $32 billion in 2020, of which $29 billion came from COVID relief funds authorized in the CARES Act. An additional $13 billion for farm subsidies was later included in the December 2020 stimulus bill.
Read: How the biggest farms are getting more per acre in trade-war subsidies
If you are wondering why so many different subsidy programs are used to compensate farmers multiple times for the same price drops and other revenue losses, you are not alone. Our research indicates that many owners of large farms collect taxpayer dollars from all three sources. For many of the farms ranked in the top 10% in terms of sales, recent annual payments exceeded a quarter of a million dollars.
Farms with average or modest sales received much less. Their subsidies ranged from close to zero for small farms to a few thousand dollars for averaged-sized operations.
So what does all this have to do with Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and their love of farmland as an investment? In a financial environment in which real interest rates have been near zero or negative for almost two decades, the annual average inflation-adjusted (real) rate of return in agriculture (over 80% of which consists of land) has been about 5% for the past 30 years, despite some ups and downs, as this chart shows. It is a very solid investment for an owner who can hold on to farmland for the long term.
The overwhelming majority of farm owners can manage that because they have substantial amounts of equity (the sector-wide debt-to-equity ratio has been less than 14% for many years) and receive significant revenue from other sources.
Thus for almost all farm owners, and especially the largest 10% whose net equity averages over $6 million, as Buffet observed, there is little or no risk and lots of potential gain in owning and investing in agricultural land.
Returns from agricultural land stem from two sources: asset appreciation — increases in land prices, which account for the majority of the gains — and net cash income from operating the land. As is well known, farmland prices are closely tied to expected future revenue. And these include generous subsidies, which have averaged 17% of annual net cash incomes over the past 50 years. In addition, Congress often provides substantial additional one-off payments in years when net cash income is likely to be lower than average, as in 2000 and 2001 when grain prices were relatively low and in 2019 and 2020.
It is possible for small-scale investors to buy shares in real-estate investment trusts (REITs) that own and manage agricultural land. However, as with all such investments, how a REIT is managed can be a substantive source of risk unrelated to the underlying value of the land assets, not all of which may be farm land.
Thanks to Congress and the average less affluent American taxpayer, farmers and other agricultural landowners get a steady and substantial return on their investments through subsidies that consistently guarantee and increase those revenues.
While many agricultural support programs are meant to “save the family farm,” the largest beneficiaries of agricultural subsidies are the richest landowners with the largest farms who, like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, are scarcely in any need of taxpayer handouts.
Vincent H. Smith is director of agricultural studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington, D.C. think tank, and professor of economics at Montana State University. Eric J. Belasco is a visiting scholar at AEI.
This is like comparing homelessness and poverty in US cities to ours.
What's gonna be funny is all these Punjabi and Haryanvi farmers protesting will immediately start selling to the private sector after the farm laws are implemented.
Oh Tattamasi, I might classify myself as Sikh culturally but I am not into religion.
So PM Modi is telling lies, because he said in parliament that APMC Mandis are going nowhere and MSP will also stay!
Can you explain, how private mandis will be more efficient than APMC Mandis and beneficial for farmers? And there will be no exploitation of farmers?
Tatte, its already 15 years since APMC Mandis were abolished and private mandis implemented in Bihar. So what is the income level of Bihari farmers now? They must lead the country by example! I hope there income must be increased manifolds than saturated income states of Punjab/Haryana with inefficient mandis!!! Again, what is there income level?
But there are people like Sanghmittra @AbRaj spreading lies here that Bihari farmers selling paddy at around Rs.800-Rs.900 per quintal to middleman and middleman selling same produce in Punjab/Haryana APMC Mandis at MSP! Lier........Now throw I-Form of Bihari farmers, who sold there paddy at Rs.2500 per quintal to Ambanis, Adanis.....etc..etc. on his face!!!
I am not comparing with any country, just letting you know the condition of farmers from where these laws were copy pasted! Can you give me example of any country, where this system is successful and yielded results?
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Radio, you are just having day dreams! There will be Punjabi or Haryanvi kissans or private mandis i.e. both can't exist together! I say it here again, there will be no implementation of these laws..Period!
Homelessness in US can't be compared with homelessness in India, Why?
What is the difference of poverty in both countries? Plz elaborate!
You have to ask yourself why the whole country supports the farm reforms before coming to ignorant conclusions like you did above.
The laws are inevitable simply because it is beneficial to all farmers and pretty much all farmers in India support the laws. Only Punjabis, under the influence of Khalistanis and Congress, are against it. Hell, your CM is even criticising direct transfer of MSP. Naturally, because then he can't put his finger in the pie if money goes straight into your bank account instead of through "commission agents".
In fact, all the farmer families I know of are eagerly awaiting the introduction of the farm laws because we do not like the govt and we definitely do like the limitaitons of MSP as well. The new laws will completely change the equation for India's agriculture industry.
Even all the intellectual bigwigs all across India support the new farm laws.
Farm law finds support from top academicians across India
The act gives complete autonomy to the farmers to trade their products where they want and with whoever they want, say experts
Even the SC committe that studied the farm laws support it. Includes 2 farm leaders.
Farmer protests: All four members of SC panel back new farm laws
Bhupinder Singh Maan, Pramod Joshi, Ashok Gulati, Anil Ghanwat are on record supporting the Modi government’s position on the three laws that farmers want repealed.
Anyway, the biggest threat to farming in Punjab is not the farm laws themselves, (and obviously not the private mandis, which is the most stupid statement ever made in this discussion) but competition from states that have developed far superior infrastructure and modern techniques than in Punjab. It's obvious that industrialised states will beat agricultural states pretty easily due to the kind of funding available for modernisation.
Karnataka is expected to achieve double digit growth or approach it in agriculture with the new farm laws. I'm sure it's the same for other South Indian states except for Kerala, since there's no industrialisation there, no different from Punjab.
Gulati said the farmers’ claims of corporate takeover of agriculture, erosion of the minimum support price protection, and the collapse of the mandi system rested on a “massive misinformation campaign”.
When people in Punjab grow a brain and see the benefits, they will automatically flock to it in droves. These new laws are inevitable and I'll be waiting to see you eat your own words in a few years after its implementation.
! Actually BJP/RSS govt. is fizzling out
!Have you anything knowledgeable to contribute regarding farm laws? These are not reforms, but regressive laws to favor 02 crony capitalists traders over 100s of million poor farmers! Thats it nothing more, nothing less!You have to ask yourself why the whole country supports the farm reforms before coming to ignorant conclusions like you did above.
The laws are inevitable simply because it is beneficial to all farmers and pretty much all farmers in India support the laws. Only Punjabis, under the influence of Khalistanis and Congress, are against it. Hell, your CM is even criticising direct transfer of MSP. Naturally, because then he can't put his finger in the pie if money goes straight into your bank account instead of through "commission agents".
In fact, all the farmer families I know of are eagerly awaiting the introduction of the farm laws because we do not like the govt and we definitely do like the limitaitons of MSP as well. The new laws will completely change the equation for India's agriculture industry.
Even all the intellectual bigwigs all across India support the new farm laws.
“We, from the academic world across leading institutes and Universities would like to assure our support to the three farm Acts passed by the Government of India. We discussed with our colleagues who are experts in this field and based on our discussion we feel this moment should not be missed. This is a golden opportunity for reforms which has been eluding agriculture since the industrial reforms in 1991. We are convinced that the moment has arrived for agriculture and if these reforms are missed, agriculture will have no future in India,” the letter said.
Farm law finds support from top academicians across India
The act gives complete autonomy to the farmers to trade their products where they want and with whoever they want, say expertswww.thehindubusinessline.com
Even the SC committe that studied the farm laws support it. Includes 2 farm leaders.
Farmer protests: All four members of SC panel back new farm laws
Bhupinder Singh Maan, Pramod Joshi, Ashok Gulati, Anil Ghanwat are on record supporting the Modi government’s position on the three laws that farmers want repealed.www.newslaundry.com
Anyway, the biggest threat to farming in Punjab is not the farm laws themselves, (and obviously not the private mandis, which is the most stupid statement ever made in this discussion) but competition from states that have developed far superior infrastructure and modern techniques than in Punjab. It's obvious that industrialised states will beat agricultural states pretty easily due to the kind of funding available for modernisation.
Karnataka is expected to achieve double digit growth or approach it in agriculture with the new farm laws. I'm sure it's the same for other South Indian states except for Kerala, since there's no industrialisation there, no different from Punjab.
Gulati said the farmers’ claims of corporate takeover of agriculture, erosion of the minimum support price protection, and the collapse of the mandi system rested on a “massive misinformation campaign”.
When people in Punjab grow a brain and see the benefits, they will automatically flock to it in droves. These new laws are inevitable and I'll be waiting to see you eat your own words in a few years after its implementation.
Same old broken record, similar to you saying in other thread, "I don't think we are vacating KR".
Can you show me, where the fkuk these laws and corporate agriculture is successful globally. A few RSS Hindutava extremist over here are lying to there teath like papa Modi!
04 corporate dalals with past record of corporate dalali, in a govt sponsored committee are going to dance over corporation's tunes!
Punjab don't need to grow Sanghi brain, we can think, analyze and conclude ourselves, required no RSS support.
Just tell me the status of Bihar (Why your band conveniently skipping mentioning Bihar as a success story of private mandis?), where these laws of private mandi system were implemented in 2006. Or just lie..lie..lie..lie..through your teath like Goebbels, till it becomes truth.
We don't need benefits of private mandis...period! There will be no implementation of these laws in 2-3 years or 2-3 decades.! Forget about it....beta tumse na ho payega! Concentrate on how to make Ambani's & Adani's richest in the world!
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here's some food for thought.
Bill Gates and Warren Buffett should thank American taxpayers for their profitable farmland investments
Congress has reduced risk by using taxpayer funds to underwrite crop prices and cash revenues.
Opinion: Bill Gates and Warren Buffet should thank American taxpayers for their profitable farmland investments
Last Updated: March 10, 2021 at 6:00 p.m.
By
Vincent H. Smith and
Eric J. Belasco
Congress has reduced risk by underwriting crop prices and cash revenues
MARKETWATCH PHOTO ILLUSTRATION/GETTY IMAGES|, ISTOCKPHOTO
Bill Gates is now the largest owner of farmland in the U.S. having made substantial investments in at least 19 states throughout the country. He has apparently followed the advice of another wealthy investor, Warren Buffett, who in a February 24, 2014 letter to investors described farmland as an investment that has “no downside and potentially substantial upside.”
There is a simple explanation for this affection for agricultural assets. Since the early 1980s, Congress has consistently succumbed to pressures from farm interest groups to remove as much risk as possible from agricultural enterprises by using taxpayer funds to underwrite crop prices and cash revenues.
Over the years, three trends in farm subsidy programs have emerged.
The first and most visible is the expansion of the federally supported crop insurance program, which has grown from less than $200 million in 1981 to over $8 billion in 2021. In 1980, only a few crops were covered and the government’s goal was just to pay for administrative costs. Today taxpayers pay over two-thirds of the total cost of the insurance programs that protect farmers against drops in prices and yields for hundreds of commodities ranging from organic oranges to GMO soybeans.
The second trend is the continuation of longstanding programs to protect farmers against relatively low revenues because of price declines and lower-than-average crop yields. The subsidies, which on average cost taxpayers over $5 billion a year, are targeted to major Corn Belt crops such as soybeans and wheat. Also included are other commodities such as peanuts, cotton and rice, which are grown in congressionally powerful districts in Georgia, the Carolinas, Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi and California.
The third, more recent trend is a return over the past four years to a 1970s practice: annual ad hoc “one off” programs justified by political expediency with support from the White House and Congress. These expenditures were $5.1 billion in 2018, $14.7 billion in 2019, and over $32 billion in 2020, of which $29 billion came from COVID relief funds authorized in the CARES Act. An additional $13 billion for farm subsidies was later included in the December 2020 stimulus bill.
Read: How the biggest farms are getting more per acre in trade-war subsidies
If you are wondering why so many different subsidy programs are used to compensate farmers multiple times for the same price drops and other revenue losses, you are not alone. Our research indicates that many owners of large farms collect taxpayer dollars from all three sources. For many of the farms ranked in the top 10% in terms of sales, recent annual payments exceeded a quarter of a million dollars.
Farms with average or modest sales received much less. Their subsidies ranged from close to zero for small farms to a few thousand dollars for averaged-sized operations.
So what does all this have to do with Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and their love of farmland as an investment? In a financial environment in which real interest rates have been near zero or negative for almost two decades, the annual average inflation-adjusted (real) rate of return in agriculture (over 80% of which consists of land) has been about 5% for the past 30 years, despite some ups and downs, as this chart shows. It is a very solid investment for an owner who can hold on to farmland for the long term.
The overwhelming majority of farm owners can manage that because they have substantial amounts of equity (the sector-wide debt-to-equity ratio has been less than 14% for many years) and receive significant revenue from other sources.
Thus for almost all farm owners, and especially the largest 10% whose net equity averages over $6 million, as Buffet observed, there is little or no risk and lots of potential gain in owning and investing in agricultural land.
Returns from agricultural land stem from two sources: asset appreciation — increases in land prices, which account for the majority of the gains — and net cash income from operating the land. As is well known, farmland prices are closely tied to expected future revenue. And these include generous subsidies, which have averaged 17% of annual net cash incomes over the past 50 years. In addition, Congress often provides substantial additional one-off payments in years when net cash income is likely to be lower than average, as in 2000 and 2001 when grain prices were relatively low and in 2019 and 2020.
It is possible for small-scale investors to buy shares in real-estate investment trusts (REITs) that own and manage agricultural land. However, as with all such investments, how a REIT is managed can be a substantive source of risk unrelated to the underlying value of the land assets, not all of which may be farm land.
Thanks to Congress and the average less affluent American taxpayer, farmers and other agricultural landowners get a steady and substantial return on their investments through subsidies that consistently guarantee and increase those revenues.
While many agricultural support programs are meant to “save the family farm,” the largest beneficiaries of agricultural subsidies are the richest landowners with the largest farms who, like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, are scarcely in any need of taxpayer handouts.
Vincent H. Smith is director of agricultural studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington, D.C. think tank, and professor of economics at Montana State University. Eric J. Belasco is a visiting scholar at AEI.
I think this is the effect of Summer - those rails get heated up under the Sun which may be burning their pichhwadas
