Arguments worth returning to.
Short essays on the concepts that organise The Political Economy of the Indian Farmer. These are the first ten of a series of twenty-five, published through The Farmer Ledger.
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Idea 01
Production Is Not Income
A record harvest can coexist with a fragile household budget. The measure that matters to the farmer is what remains after cost, risk and the market have taken their share.
3 min read · Journey I -
Idea 02
Protect the Floor. Build the Ladder.
Agricultural policy has two jobs that are often treated as rivals: making bad seasons survivable, and making good opportunities reachable.
3 min read · Journey II -
Idea 03
The Second Harvest Happens in the Market
What happens to a crop after it leaves the field can matter as much as what happened to it in the field.
3 min read · Journey III -
Idea 04
A Small Farmer Needs Scale Without Owning Scale
India’s farms are small and will stay small. The question is how to give a one-hectare farmer the bargaining power of a large one.
3 min read · Journey III -
Idea 05
Digital Agriculture Begins With Identity
Before a digital system can serve a farmer, it has to see the farmer accurately. That is an institutional problem before it is a technical one.
3 min read · Journey IV -
Idea 06
Risk Changes Farmer Behaviour
A farmer who cannot afford a bad season will rarely take a good risk. Insurance changes what gets planted.
3 min read · Journey II -
Idea 07
Infrastructure Is Income Policy
Warehouses, cold rooms and roads rarely feature in debates about farm incomes. They should.
2 min read · Journey III -
Idea 08
The Farmer Is Also an Entrepreneur
The smallholder already runs a business, balancing crops, livestock, labour and debt. Policy is learning to treat them that way.
3 min read · Journey V -
Idea 09
Trust Is Agricultural Infrastructure
Reforms fail not only when their design is wrong, but when the people they affect do not trust the process that produced them.
3 min read · Journey VI -
Idea 10
From Beneficiary to Economic Actor
The long arc of Indian agricultural policy runs from treating the farmer as a recipient of support to treating the farmer as a participant in markets and institutions.
3 min read · Journey VII
A concise monthly note on the political economy of Indian agriculture.
Policy, markets, technology and the farmer economy, written for people who need to understand them. Not a book promotion.
- No. 1One NumberThe figure that explains the month in Indian agriculture.
- No. 2One PolicyA scheme, rule or budget line, read for what it changes.
- No. 3One IdeaA concept from the farmer economy, argued in a few hundred words.
- No. 4One ChartEvidence you can see, with its source attached.
- No. 5One Thing to WatchThe decision, data release or debate coming next.
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