-The New York Times   As politicians scramble for India's 815 million votes in the most expensive and closely contested general election in the nation's history, an unexpected protest is rumbling from what was once one of the country's most placid voter blocs: its farmers. The protest is inflamed by rising attention to the shocking suicide rate on India's hardscrabble farms. Since 1995, more than 290,000 farmers have killed themselves. Though that figure,...

A new report entitled: The World of Organic Agriculture: Statistics and Emerging Trends 2014 by Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL) and the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM) says that out of the 19 lakh organic producers in the entire world during 2012, nearly 6 lakh (i.e. roughly 32 percent) are from India (see below figure 1 and link). But a grim fact is that while the rest...

-The Times of India   RAJKOT: Farmers in Saurashtra are a worried lot following the unseasonal showers that were received on Sunday and Monday. Major damage to the harvested crop of wheat, cotton, chilly and coriander has been reported from the agriculture produce committee markets (APMCs) across the region. The harvested crop lying in the open got spoilt by the rain and thunderstorm. The losses are estimated to be in crores. Even the...

A study by Jonathan Kennedy and Lawrence King, published in the Lancet journal Globalization and Health (2014) has found that liberalization of the agricultural sector in the early-1990s is responsible for the agrarian crisis and, therefore, farmers with certain socio-economic characteristics -- cash crops cultivators, with marginal landholdings, and debts-are particularly at risk of committing suicide. In short, the study detects that the differences in the structure of agricultural production explain...

-Outlook     Nagpur: The Maharashtra government has so far extended financial assistance to the tune of Rs 71.41 crore to farmers in Vidarbha region who were affected by excess rains recently. "The authorities received a total of Rs 100 crore, including Rs 80 crore on March 20 and Rs 20 crore on April 5, and have disbursed Rs 71.41 crore till today, to about 81,860 farmers affected by the heavy rainfall," official sources...