-India Water Portal Despite farmers’ apprehension, the new crop insurance scheme, Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, is considered a game changer. “Agriculture is a highly risky venture,” says Nagi Reddy, a farmer in Anantapur. Reddy is a small farmer affected by uncertainty in Crop Production stemming from unpredictable weather events and pest attacks, especially in his cotton crop. He works on his 2.5-acre farm and the rest of the time, he...

-The Indian Express The problem is particularly pronounced in Bardhaman district — known as the rice bowl of Bengal. Kolkata: West Bengal’s agriculture department has estimated that 35 per cent of the monsoon paddy might go waste if not harvested in time, an exercise that has been badly hit with farmers lacking the cash to pay for labour. The estimate is part of an agriculture department report, commissioned to assess the impact...

-The Telegraph Ahmedabad: Samir Shah never had such spare time in his life as an oil mill owner. This is, after all, the peak season when mills buy oil seeds that are available after the harvesting of kharif crops. But the Saurashtra businessman has been sitting idle the past fortnight. There's no cash to do business. The demonetisation drive has left entrepreneurs like him with a shrunken wallet. And farmers don't usually accept...

-The Hindu Centre relaxes curbs, allows farmers to buy seeds with old Rs. 500 notes. Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley directed commercial bank chiefs on Monday to focus their attention on rural India’s cash crunch over the next 40 days, with a war chest of Rs. 35,000 crore for providing credit to farmers by December. The Centre also relaxed its demonetisation policy for high-value currency notes further by allowing farmers to buy seeds...

-The Indian Express In wheat, the situation has been worsened by stocks with FCI — at 18.84 million tonnes (mt) as on November 1 — at a nine-year low. New Delhi: Wheat prices have spiralled, reflecting the precarious domestic stocks position and concerns over production of new crop because farmers are unable to arrange sufficient cash for cultivation operations, following the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 currency notes. Wheat was sold...