-AsianAge.com Now farmers have started to awaken the nation to the farming crisis with strikes in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. Indian civilisation is based on gratitude to our farmers and all beings who contribute to our food — annadata sukhibhava. Our traditional belief is “Uttam-kheti, madhyam-vyapar, neech-naukri”. The combination of the Green Revolution in Punjab imposed in the 1960s and the corporate globalisation “reforms” started in the 1990s have created policies for annadata...

-TheWire.in The Indian farmer is not just a poor, helpless victim who deserves a waiver because he cannot pay. The root cause of the debt trap is that his income has not increased with rising expenditure due to state policies. As Punjab joins the list of states to declare farm loan waivers, the political scales are now heavily tilted in favour of this idea. The government of Telangana, followed by Andhra Pradesh,...

-TheWire.in The corporate sector is responsible for 70% of the country’s NPAs, but their loans are being waived off while waiving farming loans is still being frowned upon. The Gujarat government gave a loan of Rs 456.79 crore to the Tatas to set up the Nano plant at Sanand, near Ahmedabad. The Gujarat government has acknowledged that the massive loan was given at an interest of 0.1%, to be paid back in...

-The Tribune Demonetisation didn’t overly impact the sector, but devitalisation is a concern THERE has been a lot of speculation about the extent of damage due to demonetisation on agriculture. Small farmers suffered most because cash in hand means a lot to them. They were unable to pay for inputs like fertilisers, seeds and farm labour and experienced low demand for their perishable produce. The latest data from government’s agricultural ministry however...

-PTI AHMEDABAD: A differently-abled farmer from Gujarat's arid Banaskantha district has inspired several others to make the best use of their farmland by planting pomegranate. Genabhai Patel (52), a pomegranate farmer from Sarkari Goliya village in Lakhani taluka of the district, has polio in both legs but he did not let it become a hurdle. Instead, he experimented with farm practices involving drip irrigation to produce pomegranate in the highly arid and...