-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...

-Livemint.com The impact of cash crunch on farmers is likely to have a cascading effect on the broader economy in southern India Bengaluru/ Chennai: P.V. Rajappan, a rice farmer in Kerala’s drought-hit Palakkad district, had been planning to drill a borewell to irrigate his next crop. He thought he would be able to do it this year. Rajappan delivered his entire harvest—10,210kg of paddy—to the state-run Civil Supplies Corporation, popularly known as...

-The Indian Express The fourth Minor Irrigation census, conducted in 2006-07, said there were over 21.5 lakh wells and borewells across Maharashtra. Mumbai: The abundant monsoon this year may have brought cheer to the state, but long-term supply of water remains a cause for concern. Data from wells monitored by the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) in Maharashtra has shown that water level has declined in 70 per cent of such wells....

-The Hindu Business Line Thiruvananthapuram: All available indications now point to the washout of the North-East monsoon in the Peninsula, after the drubbing it received during the preceding South-West monsoon. With half of November gone and no prospects of any major pick-up in rain during the rest of the month, there is little that the last month of December can possibly bring in. What looked a like a brief revival in activity early...

-India Water Portal Crop patterns in India are changing without consideration for local agro-climatic conditions. This puts a burden on environment, incurring huge long-term losses. The past few months saw Karnataka and Tamil Nadu bickering over the sharing of the Cauvery water. It was the failure of the south-west monsoon that had put crops in Karnataka at risk, forcing the government to stop water supplies to Tamil Nadu. The arrival of...