 "No effect of note ban on rabi sowing, prices of crops: NITI")
The acute cash crunch in rural areas due to demonetisation and the resultant drop in prices of fruits and vegetables in November and December could lower farmers’ income in 2016-17 by just 0.26 per cent, said a paper by NITI Aayog member and eminent agriculture economist Ramesh Chand.
The paper, released on Tuesday, also said if the shortage in fertilisers due to cash crunch persisted till the end of the rabi sowing season, India’s crop output could slide by 1.05 per cent, while agriculture output could shrink by 0.75 per cent.
With cash becoming scarcer, farmers scaled down fertiliser use.
