-The Indian Express Dealing with the farm distress, while simultaneously creating enough non-farm job opportunities, is going to be a tough task. Call it bad luck or otherwise, the Narendra Modi government’s first year in office hasn’t been a really great one for agriculture and rural incomes. To start with, rainfall was deficient in both the south-west (June-September) and the north-east (October-December) monsoon seasons by over 12 per cent and 33 per...

-The Indian Express Poorly designed policies are largely to blame for farm distress Successive governments have transformed an unevenly prosperous rural society to one which is evenly distressed. Small and marginal farmers now feel worse off than the landless. Most suicides have taken place in the families of such farmers, especially those with no source of non-farm income. For the sense of desperation that now pervades rural India, all political parties are...

-The Hindu Business Line Agriculture development and food security form the foundation of manufacturing growth. Modi must realise this Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s exhortation ‘Make in India’ would make perfect sense till we realise that by ‘making’ he means manufacturing. But could it be that his focus on manufacturing may come a cropper if we do not ensure that agriculture is placed permanently on a sound footing? The history of the great...

-PTI AHMEDABAD: A prominent agriculture analyst has proposed setting up of income commission at national and state levels for farmers, which will guarantee them specific monthly income against the backdrop of agrarian crisis. "An income commission should be formed for farmers, under which they would be entitled to get a minimum monthly income on the basis of their production and the area under cultivation," said Devinder Sharma. He was speaking to reporters on...

-Hindustan Times London: With the global population expected to touch 9 billion by 2050, food from forests in India and elsewhere have potential to address needs of nutrition and food security at a time when the limits of boosting agricultural production are becoming increasingly clear. A new report produced by an international panel led by Bhaskar Vira, an expert based at the University of Cambridge, says that  despite impressive productivity increases, there...