-Hindustan Times Sukhwant Singh, a farmer in Haryana’s Kurukshetra, had most of his 12 acres of agricultural land under paddy. After harvesting his crop, he set the paddy stubble on fire, burning it to the ground within a few hours. Singh and most other paddy growers in Punjab and Haryana, who are facing financial constraints due to falling productivity and dwindling returns, do not care about the ban on stubble burning put...

-Mail Today "We do not wish to risk upsetting farmers just ahead of the polls," the Punjab agriculture department officials said. Punjab has pleaded helplessness on the farm fire menace clearly citing the impending Assembly elections in March-April 2017. Members of the Supreme Court-appointed Environment Pollution Control Authority (EPCA) told Mail Today that at two recent meetings, Punjab agriculture department officials prayed they may be excused from fining farmers for burning paddy...

-The Hindu The massive pollution cloud enveloping northern India every year is a good example of the disconnect between official policy and ground realities. It has been known for long that burning of agricultural waste in the northern States significantly contributes to the poor air quality in large parts of the Indo-Gangetic Basin, with local and cascading impacts felt from Punjab all the way to West Bengal. Harmful fine particulate matter...

-The Indian Express It’s not as if the Centre cannot initiate reforms in agriculture. In fact, in at least three major areas, the onus for leadership and action lies with the Centre. For over a year, there have been news reports of Niti Aayog, the erstwhile Planning Commission’s new avatar, working on a wide-ranging reform package for India’s farm sector. In recent months, teasers have appeared hinting at the Centre’s plans of...

-The Indian Express After cotton last year, the BJP state government faces a fresh challenge ahead of late-2017 elections. Rajkot: GROUNDNUT FARMERS last week forced a suspension of auctions at the agriculture produce market committee (APMC) mandi in Amreli to protest against tumbling prices of Gujarat’s second biggest cash crop after cotton. The new groundnut-in-shell crop is fetching around Rs 3,500 per quintal, well below the minimum support price (MSP) of Rs...