-The Indian Express The new daily dietary pattern of a planetary health diet consists of approximately 35 per cent of calories as WHOle grains and tubers but also includes approximately 14 grams of red meat per day and 500 grams per day of vegetables and fruits. Pune: Can we eat in a way that works for our planet as well as our bodies, asks the EAT-Lancet commission that has brought together...

-The Hindu Business Line In an effort to reintroduce the bill seeking amendments in the Agricultural Produce Marketing (Development and Regulation) Act, the Maharashtra government has started discussions with stakeholders, including farmers’ leaders, traders and mathadi workers (head loaders). In the first meeting recently conducted by State Revenue Minister Chandrakant Patil, farmers’ leaders and traders reached an agreement on scrapping cess on the produce brought and traded in Agriculture Produce Market Committee...

-The Indian Express The existing MSP-based procurement system is fiscally unsustainable. The time has come to consider market intelligence-based regulation of crop production Farmers are always in distress when prices of their produce are subdued. The response of governments, obviously prompted by political pressures, has been to sharply hike minimum support prices (MSP) of crops or declare loan waivers. Thus, the current government at the Centre has significantly raised the MSPs of...

-The Indian Express To address farmers' woes, we need a multi-pronged strategy of income support, government investment, and institutional innovations, and not a one-size-fits-all approach. The two main policy interventions repeatedly discussed in recent months to tackle farmer distress — loan waivers and minimum support prices (MSP) — treat all farmers (large/small, male/female) alike. But farmers are heterogeneous. They differ especially by income, land owned and gender. And farmer dissatisfaction is...

-Financial Express Even as loan waivers are known to help a small number of farmers, Odisha has come up with a farmer-centric scheme which assists farming on a large and secular scale. It comes at a time when a debate on validity of loan waiver is being discussed across the country. KALIA — a farmer-specific scheme launched by the state — includes payments to everyone from big farmers and landless cultivators...