-The Economic Times blog Prayers have been answered, monsoon has made landfall in Kerala, close to where Vasco da Gama landed in 1498. Potentially, the impact on political fortunes will be no less. This government has promised to double farm incomes in six years and economists argued that this would be impossible because it would entail a 12% annual growth in incomes; unprecedented globally. Starting from such abysmally low farm income...

-IANSLive.in Once relegated to the status of "orphan crops," pulses and millets are currently a subject of tremendous interest among the global community. Pulse crops, millets and a host of other local cereals, vegetables, and fruits are of vital importance to the world's poor. It is no surprise, therefore, that development agencies working in the area of agriculture -- like mine -- have moved beyond the traditional "stars" of food research -...

-The Indian Express The fight against malnutrition depends on more than economic growth. The data from the National Family Health Survey or NFHS-4 (although only for 13 states and 2 UTs) confirms the finding from the Rapid Survey on Children (RSoC) of 2015 that there has been a significant decline in child malnutrition in the country during the last decade. In spite of a number of initiatives having been launched to combat...

-Hindustan Times The government could move away from large hikes in support prices for farmers, agriculture minister Radha Mohan Singh hinted on Wednesday, signalling a key farm policy shift aimed at rationalising subsidies and taming inflation. The minister said some people thought the “only way to shore up farmer income is through minimum support prices”. “Wrong. This alone won’t do unless farmers diversify their activities into livestock, kitchen gardens, fishery etc. That’s our...

-TheWire.in Agriculture in the state needs a new paradigm, one that acknowledges the scarcity of interlinked resources and the costs of their use. Recently, experts from Punjab Agricultural University advised farmers in the state to reduce the area taken up by the cultivation of basmati, predicting a crash in basmati prices due to huge carryover stock. Last year, the state produced 18 million tonnes of paddy and contributed a record 9.4 million...