-Financial Chronicle The United Nations declared 2014 as the International Year of Family Farming (IYFF) to recognise the importance of family farming in reducing poverty and improving global food security. According to the UN, the IYFF aims to promote new development policies at national and regional levels that will help small holder and family farmers eradicate hunger through small scale sustainable agricultural production. Family farming involves about 500 million families consisting...

-The Week Manorama Online Broken hearts float down the Bhakra Main Line canal. Broken by the endless struggle with the land, with the weather, with the creditor. Broken by broken promises, broken by the honour they lost, broken enough to kill themselves. And, at the sluice gate at Khanauri village they slow down, looking up with unseeing eyes. And, from the bridge across the canal, the beating hearts they broke look...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Centre is likely to set up a specialized agency to chart the resettlement and rehabilitation plan for families displaced by land acquisition. The agency, tentatively called the 'R&R Board', will take care of all cases of acquisition as against the present system of the district collector appointing an 'administrator' in every district to work out the R&R plan where land is taken over. Though still...

-The Hindu Business Line Leaving aside a focus on warehousing and farm credit, the Budget has sprayed ₹100 crore across a clutter of schemes The new government's budget is marked by a fractured approach to the farm sector, where perhaps the most significant spend has been on irrigation, after the large allocation to farm credit. Credit push A sum of ₹1,000 crore sounds good if instead of large irrigation projects and canal networks, the...

-The Business Standard A delayed monsoon and abundant cotton in the international market could spell trouble in the state's suicide zone Yavatmal (Maharashtra): As the skies stayed clear till the second week of June, Ramesh Gulabhrao Digde's mood darkened. His two acres were ploughed at great expense, the seeds were purchased, and a sack of fertilisers lay in a corner of his thatch-roofed hut in Parsodi village in western Maharashtra's Yavatmal...