Helpful rains little comfort for farmers

As monsoon rains move across India — usually a boom time for the agriculture sector — farmers have left their land and taken to the streets amid growing anger over plummeting food prices and unmanageable debts.

With protests spreading around the country, the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is under pressure. A drop in food prices spurred deadly clashes last week, while India’s food inflation fell into negative territory, sliding to a drop of 1.05 percent from a 0.61 percent rise in April.

Farmers are a powerful voting bloc and an angry rural sector will increase demand for Modi to provide more incentives to farmers. This comes at a time when the government is being criticized for its failure to make significant progress toward its promise of doubling farmers’ income by 2022.