-The Indian Express The failure of populist rural credit schemes stems primarily from poor understanding of farm indebtedness in the first place. From the 1970s, a lot of private investment in tube-well irrigation, farm mechanisation and allied agricultural activities took place with bank credit support. After the establishment of National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) in 1982, institutional credit flows not only accelerated, but also exhibited diversification to fund livestock...

-The Hindu Business Line Basmati, bovine exports have already plateaued New Delhi: With export earnings from basmati and bovine meat — the flagship agricultural and processed export sectors — hitting a plateau, the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) is exploring newer avenues, Chairman Devendra Kumar Singh said on Wednesday. According to data available with APEDA, export earnings from agricultural and processed food products have drastically dropped from $21.5 billion...

-The Indian Express Advancing rights of women farmers can revolutionise the rural ecosystem The stereotypical image of an Indian farmer is a mustachioed man, clad in a white dhoti with farming tools in hand. The reality is the Indian agricultural landscape is fast being feminised. Already, women constitute close to 65 per cent of all agricultural workers. An even greater share, 74 per cent of the rural workforce, is female. Despite their...

-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...

-Livemint.com Unlike the dhoti-clad, topi-wearing quintessential ‘kisan’, the new Indian farmer is vocal and tech-savvy New Delhi: In the winter of 1988 when the feisty farmer leader from Uttar Pradesh, Mahendra Singh Tikait, laid siege to Delhi with thousands of cultivators and their cattle literally creating a mess of the boat club lawns, agriculture’s share in India’s gross domestic product (GDP) was about 30%. About three decades later, the Farm Sector’s share in...