-Business Standard Labour shortage and threat of deficient monsoon are pushing adoption of farm machinery Taraori: Vikas Chaudhary, a farmer in Haryana's Karnal district, started using a maize planter in 2012. The acquisition of a happy seeder around the same time helped him sow wheat directly.  The two machines helped him reduce input costs substantially. "With the help of machines, I have managed to reduce the input cost for paddy by Rs 2,000...

-The Hindu Business Line Not the RBI, going by the revised priority sector lending norms, which will further reduce credit to the marginalised Prime Minister Narendra Modi has often expressed his sense of anguish at the plight of farmers. In a recent statement in the Lok Sabha, he noted that the agriculture community’s problems were “old, deep-rooted and widespread”, and stated that farmers cannot be left to fend for themselves. Implicit in that...

-The Hindu Business Line Instructional videos made by, and for the agricultural community Treatment of paddy seeds and scientific application of fungicide in Odisha, the creation of an ‘Azolla’ mother pit in Andhra Pradesh, insights into mint cultivation in Uttar Pradesh, and natural remedies for diarrhoea in cattle in Karnataka. You learn about all these and more from the nearly 4,000 videos produced by Digital Green, a seven-year-old development venture that is...

-Economic and Political Weekly A categorical distinction is facing rough weather--that between urban and rural. If we take just agriculture, there is so much of the outside world that comes in not just as external markets but as external inputs. Further, many of our villages barely qualify as rural if we were to take occupation alone. So the earlier line that separated the farmer from the worker in towns is slowly...

-The Indian Express India’s largest nutrient maker tells The Indian Express how 11 crore farmers can directly receive subsidy now going to the industry. Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) of fertiliser subsidy to farmers is an eminently feasible proposition and the Narendra Modi government should lose no time in going ahead with its implementation, says US Awasthi of the Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative (Iffco). “People interested in stalling DBT are giving all sorts of...