-Business Standard/ India Spend 52% of India's agricultural households are indebted; with an average outstanding loan of Rs 47,000 India’s foodgrain production rose five times over six decades, according to 2016 government data, the latest available. But with the average Indian farm half as large as it used to be 50 years ago and yields among the lowest in developing economies, both the agriculture sector and farmers have been driven to the...

-Bangalore Mirror Reservoirs in the state are filled to only half their capacities, a first in 42 years Slowly, Monsoon is weakening, and we have not got our share of rainfall yet. Barring Kalaburagi, all districts in the state have had poor rainfall — a clear deficit. In Bengaluru City, the shortfall is 52%. According to experts, the rainfall in the state has fallen by 20-55 per cent, from June 1 to...

-Mumbai Mirror A behind the scenes look at what’s driving the region’s return to traditional paddy techniques. It’s certainly not the global shift towards organic cultivation. A recent study conducted by Harvard University has established that consuming just one cup of white rice (polished rice) a day can put you at risk of diabetes, regardless of your nationality or whether you have a family history of the disease. Bhairav Saini lives in...

-Livemint.com 2016 recorded the lowest suicides in the farm sector in over two decades, shows data shared by agriculture minister Radha Mohan Singh New Delhi: There is little doubt that 2016 was replete with positive data on agriculture sector—a normal Monsoon, record production of grains and perishables, and a rebound in the farm sector growth after consecutive years of drought-induced dismal performance. However, this positive data failed to lift farmers’ sentiment because...

-PTI ‘North central region seeing much wetter pattern, with stronger Monsoons over the last 15 years’ Washington: Monsoon has strengthened over north central India in the last 15 years, researchers from the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have said, indicating a reversal in the general perception that the region has dried up in over a decade. Chien Wang, a senior research scientist in MIT’s Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, the...