-Down to Earth Government reports say 2004-14 had the highest agriculture growth that has fast slipped back to near-zero growth despite normal monsoons and bumper yields The National Democratic Alliance government is scrambling to rescue the agriculture sector from a crisis never seen before. On January 10, Prime Minister Narendra Modi met over 100 economists in a first ever such interaction. Agriculture, rural economy and unemployment dominated the discussions. Modi’s promise of...

-Livemint.com Sluggish wage growth, lower crop planting, fluctuating prices paint a dismal picture for farmers and the agriculture sector New data released by the government on rural wages, crop prices and sowing of winter crops reveals that rural distress is worsening. Planting of wheat, the main winter crop, between October and early January was 5% lower than a year ago due to lower sowing in Madhya Pradesh by close to a million hectares;...

  The Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare has contended that the growth in real Gross Value Added (GVA) by the agrarian sector will not decline in 2017-18 vis-à-vis 2016-17 as has been predicted by the Central Statistics Office (CSO). The first advance estimates of CSO show that the growth rate in GVA at basic price (at 2011-12 prices) of the 'Agriculture, forestry & fishing' sector is likely to dip from 4.9...

-The Economic Times Politicians in India firmly believe that the woes of farmers can be solved with freebies: free electricity, free water, farm loan waivers, fertilisers and seed subsidies, minimum support prices, etc. Little attention is paid to what really ails Indian agriculture: low productivity. From rice to wheat to coarse grains and pulses, from cash crops to food crops, Indian agriculture is punctured with very low productivity. Let's start with rice....

-The Asian Age The increase in the income has also halted migration of local people to other states in search of work. Bhubaneswar: Grappling with financial problems because of non-remunerative character of their age-old agricultural practices, villagers living in hilly areas of Odisha’s Gajapati district have suddenly found enough money coming to their pockets by adoption of traditional methods of irrigation. Sourcing water in the Diversion Based Irrigation (DBI) system from the streams...