India: Are the farm ordinances against farmers’ interests? (Inter Press Service News Agency) 

Inter Press Service published an op-ed by K Nirmal Ravi Kumar and Senior Research Fellow/Director of Capacity Strengthening Suresh Babu. The op-ed stated that farm policy in India is in its own conundrum. If you ask, “what are the major challenges for increasing farmer income,” any farmer in India would tell us that it is the low remunerative prices for their produces and he or she will add that most of the market margins goes to the middlemen. The Government of India is getting the policies right to address these problems by passing three Ordinances.  The authors describe each ordinance and what the ordinance hopes to achieve. Though progress in Indian agricultural market reforms (1990s and 2000s) has been slow, these ordinances could be a watershed moment for Indian agriculture if they are implemented well. Yet, their implementation solely rests with the state governments making the next move through developing their own contextualized strategies.