-The Indian Express In many areas, farmers had harvested their crop but did not get time to shift the produce to a dry location as the rain caught them unawares. Farmers in Maharashtra are staring at crop loss of over Rs 5,000 crore across 30 districts after heavy rain caused extensive damage to standing crop in the last few days. The scale of crop loss may be even worse as authorities...

-Hindustan Times The local Bharatiya Janata Party legislator Mahendra Rai said Gwal killed himself because he didn’t get the compensation towards his damaged crop on time. Sagar/ Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): A 42-year-old farmer, who allegedly drank poison on Sunday evening in Bina town of Madhya Pradesh’s Sagar district after his crops were damaged, died on Monday, said police. Sagar’s superintendent of police Amit Sanghi said Kamal Chand Gwal was upset due to soybean...

Sporadic natural events like floods and droughts have made headlines in recent times. An official report, which was released in April this year, among other things, shows that extreme weather events have taken a huge toll on both human and cattle lives, personal property and crops grown by farmers and farm workers. A chapter on extreme weather events and natural disasters in the report entitled EnviStats India 2019, Vol. I: Environment...

-The Hindu Business Line Mumbai: The cotton crop in Maharashtra is facing whiteflies attacks and if enough attention is not provided by the State Government then the problem could aggravate and cause significant economic damage, senior Maharashtra Government officials told BusinessLine. Changes in weather and higher moisture content in the air coupled with the use of synthetic Pyrethroids for killing pink bollworms has lead to the ingress of whiteflies, such pesticides act...

-The Indian Express The Maha Agri Tech project attempts to mitigate agricultural risks by using data anlytics to plug gaps. Launched in January this year, the Maha Agri Tech project seeks to use technology to address various cultivation risks ranging from poor rains to pest attacks, accurately predict crop-wise and area-wise yield and eventually to use this data to inform policy decisions including pricing, warehousing and crop insurance. When farmers in...