-The Hindu Three out of five farmers in India grow their crops using rainwater, instead of irrigation. However, per hectare government investment into their lands may be 20 times lower, government procurement of their crops is a fraction of major irrigated land crops, and many of the government’s flagship agriculture schemes are not tailored to benefit them. A new rainfed agriculture atlas released this week not only maps the agro biodiversity and...
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Kerala's farm labourers are paying for excessive pesticide use with their health -- and lives -TA Ameerudheen
-Scroll.in Two labourers died of suspected pesticide poisoning in Kuttanad, the state’s rice bowl, in January. On the morning of January 17, KK Sanal Kumar strapped a motorised sprayer onto his back and left for a paddy field near his home in Peringara gram panchayat of Kerala’s Pathanamthitta district. The owners of the field, Unnikrishnan and Sanil, gave him several bottles of the highly hazardous pesticide Viraat to spray on their 40-day-old...
More »'Rainfed farmers are the most neglected'
-The Hindu Business Line Need to do more R&D in rainfed agriculture and bring in more policy perspective: Ashok Dalwai Even though rainfed agriculture contributes to 60 per cent of the value of agriculture GDP of India, there is a clear-cut bias towards irrigated areas when it comes to public investment in agriculture in the country. This neglect, together with unsuitable programme design, has ensured that potential of rain-fed areas remains unrealised, a...
More »As Farmers March to Delhi, Climate Change Fuels Their Larger Crisis -Nagraj Adve
-TheWire.in Perhaps we can visualise a farmers’ march 20 years from now, with one more demand: resettlement, for lands and homes they have lost to the vagaries of a shifting climate. A few years ago, a group of us from Delhi, along with members of the Gujarat Agricultural Labour Union and the International Union of Foodworkers, went to eastern Gujarat to speak to farmers about how a changing climate could be affecting...
More »How can small farmers' income be increased? -Yogesh Upadhyaya
-IndiaWaterPortal.org Here is a look at the challenges faced by small farmers in India and how they can be dealt with. As per the agricultural statistics of 2014, nearly 430 people depend on farming in India while 263 million people are either farmers or agricultural workers. Farmers are major contributors to the growth of Indian economy and their concerns impact policies in the country. Nearly 87 percent of farmers in India...
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