-The Hindu Business Line The Indian wheat situation is turning worrisome, not because of the over-optimistic production estimate released by the Ministry of Agriculture recently, but because of the current price levels that provide no encouragement to farmers. Fraught with possibilities, the wheat may go the pulses way. The policy-makers may soon be forced to impose import restrictions in the form of higher tariffs. Output, prices To start with, no one in the trade...

  The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has recently made an upward revision to the growth to be experienced by the agrarian economy in the present crop year (viz. from July, 2017 to June, 2018). The growth in real Gross Value Added (GVA) by the agrarian sector as a whole is expected to be 3.0 percent in 2017-18 as per the second advance estimates of national income for 2017-18, which was released...

-The Hindu Rather than just increased budgetary outlays, farmers need plans that will rescue them from crop failure Similar to the last two Budgets, this year’s pro-agriculture intentions are palpable through increased outlays to the agricultural sector and initiation of various programmes. They seem impressive, but closer scrutiny shows that the measures may be of little help to stem the tide of agrarian distress. There are some real challenges confronting three...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The ponds and wells dug under the rural job guarantee scheme have boosted farmers' income by an average 15 per cent, a study has found. The finding by the Institute of Economic Growth, New Delhi, appears to contradict charges that the scheme has lagged in asset creation and been largely a failure. According to the survey, farmers reported an 11 per cent rise in rice and wheat production and...

-The Indian Express Agricultural prices crashed in April-June, just when a bumper rabi crop had been harvested after two years of drought, and despite demonetisation. 2017 was agriculture’s annus horribilis. The reason wasn’t monsoon failure (as in 2014 and 2015) or unseasonal rain and hail (as in March 2015); the year was, in fact, largely free of extreme weather events, resulting in a record output of wheat, pulses, cotton, potato and a...