Sugandha has a point by point criticism of why the finance minister is pointing fingers at the wrong “inefficiencies of the farm market” while addressing the sharp rise in food prices:

The food policy has so far been characterized by various kinds of input subsidies. The problem is that, unlike support for extension of irrigation or adoption of new technology, most of these subsidies (e.g., on electricity, water or fertilizer) are not of an once-for-all nature and hence do not cause an enduring increase in productivity. In general, for attaining a targeted increase in output, input subsidies are much less efficient than production subsidies, remembering that the latter leave it to farmers to choose inputs on the basis of their relative costs and productivity.