-The Hindu Business Line Horticulture farmers and wheat growers are the worst hit Ahmedabad: After a devastating hailstorm and unseasonal rains earlier this week in parts of Western India that damaged crops, farmers in Rajasthan and Gujarat are now pinning their hopes on the government assistance to make up for the losses. The worst hit are horticulture farmers and wheat growers, who were in the middle of the harvest season. According to estimates...

-Newsclick.in In an interview, the ‘father’ of India’s Green Revolution, says while technology is necessary, policies on procurement and public distribution are far more important in making agriculture economically viable and sustainable in the country. No one has played a more instrumental role in India’s self-sufficiency in food production than Dr MS Swaminathan — world-renowned agricultural scientist, known as the ‘Father of Green Revolution in India’. After getting a PhD from Cambridge...

-The Hindu Business Line Eminent agriculture scientist MS Swaminathan, Chairman of the much discussed Farmers’ Commission whose report mooted an MSP at 50 per cent above cost, feels that income support can be given in the form of free inputs or higher procurement as well. While welcoming ‘PM-Kisan’, he says cash transfer should not become a form of patronage and that the focus should shift from loan write-offs to long-term policies....

-The Hindu Business Line Many ryots covered by PMFBY in Jalna district faced hardship due to a bureaucratic bungle Following a BusinessLine article dated February 18 (‘When cover for farmers came a cropper’), settlement has been done to 146 farmers of Jalna district in Aurangabad (Maharashtra) under the crop insurance scheme (for Kharif 2017) by the insurer, IFFCO Tokio. Here’s a quick recap of what had happened: Jalna was badly hit by a...

-The Times of India Farmer unrest in Tamil Nadu is a much-debated subject on the eve of the Lok Sabha polls. However, the widespread agrarian distress has been in the making for decades as successive governments have had little understanding of the sector’s problems. Now that elections are here, farmers, who are an influential group in most of the constituencies, are again the focus of political campaigners. “Both the Congress and the...