-Livemint.com Unlike the dhoti-clad, topi-wearing quintessential ‘kisan’, the new Indian farmer is vocal and tech-savvy New Delhi: In the winter of 1988 when the feisty farmer leader from Uttar Pradesh, Mahendra Singh Tikait, laid siege to Delhi with thousands of cultivators and their cattle literally creating a mess of the boat club lawns, agriculture’s share in India’s gross domestic product (GDP) was about 30%. About three decades later, the farm sector’s share in...

-Livemint.com Under the flagship crop insurance scheme Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, Rs5,875 crore, or just 45%, has been paid to farmers, agriculture ministry data shows New Delhi: Farmers who suffered crop losses in 2016-17 are yet to receive insurance compensation for 55% of estimated claims under the flagship Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY), shows latest numbers from the agriculture ministry. The data shows that insurance companies collected Rs22,338 crore in 2016-17...

-Business Standard Farmers are not getting enough protection as states mostly do not pay the premium they should With the rains falling in abundance and tomatoes refusing to do so, agriculture economy experts have a lot to say on what both mean for the sector.   Both pose a risk to farmers — of floods and of lack of pricing power. Yet the farmers don't have much to fend those off since agricultural insurance...

-The Indian Express For farmers, a uniform 2 per cent premium rate on sum insured (SI) for all kharif or monsoon season foodgrains and oilseeds, while 1.5 per cent for rabi winter crops and 5 per cent for annual commercial and horticultural crops, is the lowest they can hope for. The country couldn’t possibly have, at least on paper, a better agricultural crop insurance scheme than the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima...

-Business Standard Says over Rs 32,000-crore released to insurers from 2011-16 without verification of beneficiaries The crop insurance continues to be a problematic area despite the Centre launching the much-touted Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) from Kharif 2016 replacing two old schemes with no or marginal increase in coverage of non-loanee farmers, lower sum insured as compared to scale of finance and delayed claim settlement which defeated the very purpose of...