-Livemint.com The committee’s suggestions on major reforms include an overhaul of the Union agriculture ministry New Delhi: In a detailed action plan for doubling farmers’ incomes, a top government panel has proposed major reforms to the existing administrative structure. This includes an overhaul of the Union agriculture ministry, setting up a three-tier planning and review mechanism through district, state and national level committees and an annual ease of doing agribusiness survey. The committee on...

-Hindustan Times Unless consumer preferences shift to climate resistant crops, goals associated with the policy won’t materialise After a gap of three years, the Karnataka government has reintroduced ragi/finger millet in its public distribution system (PDS). To feed the PDS system, the government has announced a procurement price much higher than the market price and introduced bonuses. With interventions on the sides of both production as well as consumption, the objectives are...

  The Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare has contended that the growth in real Gross Value Added (GVA) by the agrarian sector will not decline in 2017-18 vis-à-vis 2016-17 as has been predicted by the Central Statistics Office (CSO). The first advance estimates of CSO show that the growth rate in GVA at basic price (at 2011-12 prices) of the 'Agriculture, forestry & fishing' sector is likely to dip from 4.9...

-DNA The impact of drought on women farmers remains unregistered by the state, which considers them only in their non-farm roles in rural households and village communities. The new drought relief manual is no different as it merely provides an alibi for the state to abdicate its responsibility towards farm crises and utilises gender to reduce its intervention in agriculture by addressing only one half of the population. Drought is never too...

-Press Information Bureau/ Ministry of Finance The Union Minister of Finance and Corporate Affairs Shri Arun Jaitley said that there is a need to conserve water, incentivize agro processing and promote balanced use of fertilizers in order to ensure higher agriculture productivity. The Finance Minister said that in order to achieve the goal of doubling the farmer’s income by 2022, there is need for better storage and marketing facilities for the...