-Scroll.in The Kisan Long March will leave an enduring mark, the journalist writes in the preface to a new book that documents the historic struggle. Weeks after the Long March, the idea and image still lingers – of 40,000 people walking over 200-km, the last 10-15 km in darkness and silence (as silent as it is possible for such a multitude to be). Those farmers and landless peasants walked into Mumbai,...

-The Indian Express The crop in a well-marked plot of this field is, then, harvested, threshed, winnowed and weighed. If the produce contains moisture, it has to be dried first before weighing. Crop cutting experiments (CCE) have traditionally been conducted to obtain reliable average yield rates for estimation of agricultural production. These are mostly done by district/subdivision-level officials from the revenue, economics and statistics or agriculture departments of the concerned state governments....

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has recently directed the Centre to take a decision on banning 18 pesticides within the next two months. Most of these have been banned in other parts of the world because of their health and ecological impacts. SC has also said that if a decision is taken to ban a particular pesticide, then the ban be implemented within 15 days. Farmers groups, public...

-The Indian Express Curbing stubble burning is about inducing behavioural changes in farmers. Given that crop residue burning has an environmental footprint and poses health hazards, one needs to be cautious while evaluating the Centre’s policy to mitigate the crisis. But there is also an urgent need for such an evaluation. The Centre has allocated Rs 1,050 crore to the states where crop residue burning poses a pollution hazard. The Union Ministry...

-Down to Earth More than creating financial crunch for upcoming sowing season, cash crunch is impacting the prices at which farmers are selling their produce While the Union government is promising that cash crunch in the market would end soon, the farmers have already started feeling the pinch badly. The fears of demonetisation have come back for them. They are in soup because not only is this the harvest season, but also...