-Livemint.com The perception of a farmer as a ‘dumb peasant’ in public policy lies at the core of the agrarian crisis Last month, the agriculture ministry informed Parliament that 2,806 farmers committed suicide in 2015 due to “agrarian reasons”. The data further showed that the highest number of suicides were recorded in Maharashtra (1,841), followed by Punjab (449), Telangana (342), Karnataka (107) and Andhra Pradesh (58), among others. What is common to...

-The Hindu Business Line New Delhi: The Centre will work out a strategy for Crop Production for the coming kharif cropping season keeping in mind the recent crop damage due to unseasonal rain and moisture stress and deficit monsoon last year. The strategy will be thrashed out at a national conference on kharif 2016 next week. The kharif cropping season is from July to October during the South-West monsoon. “The South-West monsoon of the...

-United Nations World cereal production in 2016 is set to reach 2,521 million tonnes, just 0.2 per cent below last year’s and the third-highest on record, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said today. Large inventory levels and relatively sluggish global demand mean that market conditions for staple food grains appear stable for at least another season, the agency's latest Cereal Supply and Demand Brief predicts. According to the FAO Food...

Amidst the prevailing gloominess over agrarian crisis, a recently released report says that the growth rate of agricultural output in both India and China were the same during 2008-2013. The agricultural gross domestic product (GDP) of both these countries on an average grew at 3.3 percent per annum during that period. The latest available data from the 2016 Global Food Policy Report, however, indicates that the neighbouring countries of Sri Lanka...

-Down to Earth Participants voice concern on drought, farmers' suicide and water conservation, among other issues The three-day long Kisan Swaraj Sammelan held in Hyderabad (April 1 to 3) urged for the enactment of a Farmers’ Income Guarantee Act to ensure dignified earning levels for agricultural households among a host of other things. Organised by the Alliance for Sustainable and Holistic Agriculture, a group comprising 400 diverse organisations from across India, the...