-Livemint.com The agriculture sector saw a 94% increase in allocation, but an analysis of the numbers suggest that the real hike is a modest 27% New Delhi: In a bid to revive growth in agriculture and improve farm incomes, at a time when rural India is Weathering a protracted period of distress, the Union Budget presented on Monday placed a renewed focus on the farm sector by increasing funds for crop insurance...

-Business Standard Many good ideas for agricultural reform should be in the Budget Shoring up the rural economy that has been crippled because of two successive droughts is clearly a major focus of the upcoming Budget. This is imperative also to revive rural demand for goods and services to stimulate overall economic growth. But how Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will seek to achieve this feat is hard to predict, though what he...

-Livemint.com Spending on irrigation, crop insurance to be doubled; e-platform to be developed for farm produce New Delhi: The government is set to double annual spending on irrigation and crop insurance, and develop a national digital platform for farm produce in order to ensure better prices for farmers, as part of a push to reduce rural distress following the first back-to-back drought in India in three decades. “We’re expecting that the new...

-Hindustan Times The government’s crop insurance scheme designed to protect 700 million farmers from natural disasters appears to have been overshadowed by Maharashtra’s BJP parliamentarian Gopal Shetty’s alleged description of farmer suicides as a ‘fashion’ and a ‘trend’. Critics have often described the government, which rode to a landslide poll victory in 2014 promising to usher in ‘achhe din’, as ‘pro-corporate’ at the cost of ignoring the farmers. The Narendra Modi-led NDA...

-Livemint.com Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana will kick in from April, before planting for the next rain-fed kharif crop begins The government wants to cover 50% of all farmers under a new and revamped crop insurance policy that seeks to shield farmers from Weather-related risks, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Thursday. The new scheme, Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY), was approved by the cabinet on 13 January to address rural...