Wheat cannot be digitised. Crypto cannot be eaten. Yet, both can suffer the same wrath at the hands of India’s policymakers. Ban if you do and ban if you don’t!
Let’s start with wheat. The Russia-Ukraine war brought a windfall for India’s wheat farmers, perhaps a divine payoff for the cruelty they endured through the two-year agitation against the three farm laws. The war choked off almost 40% of the world’s supplies, forcing countries to queue up outside India’s mandis (local agriculture marts). Global prices leapt, turbo-charging India’s hitherto tiny export share of about a per cent or two of world markets.
Tiny, because until now, India, the second-largest producer of wheat after Russia, hardly felt the need to export. Our government’s minimum support price (MSP) paid handsomely, usually above world prices. And we had a huge population to feed. So, nearly 99% of our harvest stayed and was consumed at home.