-Livemint.com Repeated price shocks take the sheen off horticulture crops grown by small and marginal farmers New Delhi: In the past few years, horticulture crops emerged as a favourite for small growers across the country. 2016-17 marks the fifth straight year when production of fruits and vegetables is estimated to surpass that of foodgrains. This signals a fundamental shift in India’s farm economy towards a growing share of horticulture crops, which now...

-TheWire.in Tamil Nadu continues to witness cycles of flood and drought annually. Mismanagement of traditional water management systems is one of the main reasons. Tamil Nadu: That Tamil Nadu qualifies to be dubbed as a land of climate paradoxes is beyond debate. The massive flood of 2015 was quickly followed by a punishing drought in 2016. Though the state benefited marginally from the southwest monsoon, as is usually the case, the biggest...

-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...

-The Times of India A striking feature of the poll campaign in Uttarakhand is that neither of the two major political parties have any concrete strategy for a crisis that's haunting nearly half the state's population. Since 2000, when the state was created, foodgrain production has gone down by 6% and land under cultivation by 11%. In neighbouring Himachal Pradesh, with similar mountainous terrain, foodgrain output increased by 29% while the country...

-PTI The inter-ministerial panel is looking at suggesting market reforms in a big way and increasing focus on sub-sectors of agriculture like animal husbandry, poultry and fisheries Hyderabad: A committee formed by the Centre to double farmers’ income by 2022 is considering major reforms in agriculture sector, like adopting a profit-centric approach and to aim at increased productivity and reduced cost of cultivation. The inter-ministerial panel, constituted in April last year, is also...