The opening up of the farm sector is partly responsible for the crisis amongst cotton growers but the crisis in the entire agriculture sector has emerged because of criminal under investment and utter neglect by policymakers. Farming is not remunerative and there is a crisis because of 1. low productivity, 2. poor water availability, 3. lack of credit, 4. low farmgate realizations, 5. lack of market intelligence and 6. lack of risk management tools.

Sunil Khairnar, who has worked in agribusiness, offers a simple, pragmatic ‘things-to-do’ solutions package to tackle the agrarian crisis in India. If you’ve only two minutes to spare on reading today, and you’re not a sucker for grandstanding performances…and you’re genuinely concerned about the issue (and not because it is such an entertaining ideological battleground), read it.