@ThinkTank
@ThinkTank · 0:54

State of Agriculture; In Conversation with Mr.Siraj Hussain

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He served the government under various capacities and he is one of the foremost experts on agricultural reform. Mr Hussein most recently worked as Joint Secretary in the Department of Food and Public Distribution. He is currently Senior fellow at the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations. Mr. Hussein, thank you so much for Steve for agreeing to join me here as well. I will follow this up with three questions and I'm really looking forward to hearing your thoughts on them

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@ThinkTank
@ThinkTank · 0:15
Mister Sane. To start off, there are some serious concerns at the level of rising inflation in the country, especially at the wholesale level. Can you give us a sense of the current state of inflation? And what do you make of it when compared to historical trends? Th
@ThinkTank
@ThinkTank · 0:40
Secondly, sir, the privatization of agriculture has been an ongoing process, especially since the passing of the 991 reforms. But the promulgation of the farm ordinance last year resulted in serious uproar among various quarters, especially farmers and agricultural groups. What do you think of the way these laws were passed? And I know you've written extensively on the subject, especially in terms of what's what these laws consisted of, but what did you think of the substance?
@ThinkTank
@ThinkTank · 0:36
And my final question, Mr. Hussein, is in the month of May, the government decided to ban wheat exports in order to conserve stocks domestically. What is your reading of this particular decision? And in terms of the global scenario, you the current concern is the ongoing Russia Ukraine war. How do you think this will impact the state of agriculture globally? And with that, I just want to thank you again for this conversation. We're really looking forward to hearing your responses to these questions
@Jyoti61
Siraj Hussain
@Jyoti61 · 1:28
So right now the situation is quite peculiar and the wholesale price inflation is much higher than the retail price inflation. So this situation is quite unusual. Now, food inflation has been high in the last one year, especially after the destination invasion of Ukraine and one of the major reasons for the shortfall in global supply of several food commodities like wheat, edible oils, et cetera. Indonesia also imposed a ban on export of palm oil. So that also contributed to food inflation
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@Jyoti61
Siraj Hussain
@Jyoti61 · 3:30
As far as the other two reforms are concerned, that is contract farming and free agriculture marketing. I think many states have since reduced the marketing fee for agricultural commodities. For example, Mathapadesh made it zero for export of wheat this year. It is a different matter that the central government banned the export of weed. So a number of states have taken these steps. But even now there are several states where the marketing fee continues to be high
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@Jyoti61
Siraj Hussain
@Jyoti61 · 0:30
As far as the ban on wheat export is concerned, I think the government took into account the reports which were coming in the media about the loss to wheat crop due to excessive heat. Th in March, the government's estimate of reproduction was 111,000,000 tons. Later on, the government revised that estimate to about 106,000,000 tons. But the trade feels that the price production is something
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@ThinkTank
@ThinkTank · 0:39
Mr. Sane, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts on those important questions. I just wanted to make a minor correction. In my introduction, I did state that you were most recently working as joint secretary. But for those listening, I'd like to state that Mr. Hussain was joined secretary until 2019 and was formerly agricultural secretary and is currently senior fellow at iCRYO. So my apologies for that
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