Comments by "M Shastri" (@libshastra) on "The ‘other’ oil price rise —Modi govt’s big edible oil plan. Also note big change in Indian cricket" video.

This is the real oil inflation that hurts the kitchen. This is real inflation. Regarding onions and other farm products - it's not a production issue. India has one of the highest amounts of farm product losses in transportation and storage. That's a big reason why we have seasonal onion spikes.
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Andhra has been going through a very silent green revolution. The state govt has invested a lot in lift irrigation, natural farming, multi cropping and diversifying yields from their farms. It's a lesson for States like Punjab, Haryana and UP. Andhra farmers have embraced the new farm laws (actually their market reforms formed the backbone of Centers farm laws).
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@prithvigulati6965 Andhra doesn't have Mandis or APMCs. They haven't been covered MSP for quite a while (a little more than a decade). Andhra agriculture is very liberalized and pretty formalized. There are a lot of contract farmers who work with big companies like ITC and Adani. Renigunta has a huge ITC warehouses and edible oil processing plants. Godavari Delta has several Adani warehouses that helps with Rice exports. Andhra has also generated employment for landless and lower caste farmers through schemes specifically aimed at food processing (All your pickles comes from Andhra). The PM KUSUM, Jal Jeevan component of MNREGA has given income to lower caste folks who were allocated dead land (you can't farm crops on them). Andhra has been very smart about us agricultural policy and they take advantage of schemes that the Center offers. Andhra has been very smart of how it spends it's money. I think it's time other States especially Punjab and Haryana learn from Andhra.
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@zion3335 it's not road or rail. It's storage, that's where majority of the losses comes from. Under the previous farm laws (mainly essential commodities Act), FCI and APMCs had the monopoly on most major produce. Decades of neglect and lack of funding left them in extremely dilapidated state. Produce losses would be as high as 50% in their warehouses. That's exactly why food prices are high for consumers. But there's one thing Modi Sarkar has done really good and got right is infrastructure. The amount of money going into logistic parks (a significant portion of it goes into food parks with cold storage, dry storage and sorting facilities) is huge. In the coming years, there will be a boom in produce distribution. I anticipate that Govt. will no longer need to rely on export bans to keep prices stable. I think it'll be a net win for everyone especially if Govt. gets good trade deals that allows for exports.
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@navan1087 so are farmers from Maharashtra, Sikkim and Goa. They are very resourceful and use the technical assistance provided by GIZ (German aid agency) and funding by KfW (German development bank). Maharashtra (Vidarbha) has started exporting organic oranges, Goa is trying to market and package it's Todi (country liquor), Sikkim is exporting organic tea. Rajasthan is getting there too, it's now setting as example of how to generate non farm income through Solar agro farms (farm land that grows produce under solar panels).
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@aosaeanor a majority of that 6% is Punjabi, Haryanvi and UP farmers.
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@zion3335 nonsense. FCI used to store most essential commodities under essentiall commodities Act until it was diluted in 2020 before being scrapped. It made it impossible for anyone outside of APMC and FCI to keep stock of produce as that would be considered as hoarding. Onions, potatoes, pulses, mustard, rapeseed oil, unprocessed ghee, jaggery were all essential commodities. You couldn't even store anything beyond capacity to process them into other food products aka captive use.
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@buny169 I believe you need to check yours. RK Murthy, Horticulture Commissioner, Department of Agriculture, Cooperation & Farmers Welfare has written about it, "India’s storage losses in onions are about 30 per cent." That's All India stats, broken down by region is even worse.
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