Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar’s statement in Parliament that the Government plans to shift subsidies from chemical fertilizers to organic manures has finally earned him some admiration from grassroots organisations working with Small and Marginal Farmers in the country’s vast dry-lands. Pawar’s statement, if translated into policy action, may go a long way in improving the condition of some of India’s poorest farmers in the rain-fed areas which account for...

The Government of India has formally launched the news Guidelines of the MGNAREGA based on the Mihir Shah Committee report. The news guidelines include many new works under conservation activities and it strengthens the hands of the village panchayats and gram sabhas. However, the list of works does not include the activities under the system of rice intensification (SRI) which encourages scientific method of paddy cultivation with better yield in...

Last week, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) released its first annual monsoon forecast for June-September. Monsoons are likely to be normal with the probability of deficient or excessive monsoons being relatively low, according to IMD. If this prediction comes true, what does this really mean for India's economy? Impact on agricultural output: The first and most important impact is, of course, on agricultural production, especially in the kharif or summer season....

The economic crisis, the ecological crisis and the food crisis are a reflection of an outmoded and fossilised economic paradigm. It is a paradigm that grew out of mobilising resources for the war by creating the category of “growth”. It is rooted in the age of oil and fossil fuels. It is fossilised because it is obsolete, a product of the age of fossil fuels. If we have to address...

-Reuters   PERLE: As a shiny red harvester bounces across the black earth into the first row of sugar cane, excited schoolchildren run after it and several dozen men stand gaping in the wake of its swift progress. It's the first time that Perle, a village on the banks of the Krishna river in Maharashtra state, has seen a machine used for cutting the tough cane. "This machine will harvest my entire field today,"...