-The Hindu They lost chance to cultivate short-duration cash crops due to delayed monsoon Gulbarga (Karnataka): The hopes of Gulbarga Farmers, who have lost the chance to cultivate short-duration cash crops such as green gram, black gram and sesamum owing to the inordinate delay in the onset of monsoon, now rest on red gram, the mainstay of growers in the district. Farmers have been deprived of the opportunity to cultivate black gram on...

-The Times of India RAJKOT: A farmer Janak Patel in Abharampara village of Amreli district has seen his entire sowing on 40 bigha land going waste. He had anticipated rainfall within 30 days of sowing. However, monsoon did not keep its date with the state. "I had sown cotton in 40 bigha land 30 days ago thinking that rain would come on time. But all has gone waste," said Patel adding that...

-Live Mint The slow monsoon may hurt crop yields and cut Farmers' returns, especially in states such as Maharasthra and Gujarat Lasalgaon, Maharashtra: Pramod Patil's 40-acre field in Lasalgaon usually turns green around now with germinated soybean and corn seeds, but this year he has yet to begin planting because of scanty monsoon rains in Maharashtra. Like 27-year old Patil, millions of Indian Farmers are hoping rains will strengthen in the next...

-The Hindu Business Line   Using Census and other data, the Union Rural Development Ministry is defending itself against complaints that the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) has led to labour shortage, affecting agriculture. The data available with the Ministry say that during the peak agriculture season, just 2.57 per cent of the total agricultural labourers were involved in MGNREGS activities. The data says that between August and September of...

-The Deccan Chronicle Kollam (Kerala): Kulasekharapuram, a small panchayat on the border of Kollam district is all set to implement the United Nation's call to observe 2014 as International Family Farming Year, raising the slogan of self-sustainability in food production. The panchayat has two villages, Adinad and K.S. Puram and as many as 12,230 families in 23 wards. The agricultural office of the panchayat had identified the fact that extensive cultivation alone...