Doubling farmers' income

Agri policies should expedite shift from output to income

When the government announced the target of doubling the farmers’ income by 2022, it looked a tall order. But going by the latest evidence, based on systematic studies, it seems that the goal might not be completely missed. In fact, the net inflation-adjusted income of farmers has surged two-fold, or close to that in many states, especially in the case of those who are growing commercial crops, such as sugarcane, cashew, tea, coffee, or rubber. The lag in many other cases is also not too large. The reports brought out by the Economic Research Department of the State Bank of