-PTI Jharkhand Government Asks Centre to Declare State as Drought-Hit   Ranchi: Jharkhand government on Tuesday decided to recommend the Centre to declare the state as drought-hit following scanty rainfall this season. Additional Chief Secretary and in-charge of the Cabinet department N N Pandey told reporters here that the decision was taken in a cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister Raghubar Das. A physical verification found crop loss and decline in the levels of ground...

-Scroll.in Two successive crop failures have brought the poor of Bundelkhand to the brink. The soil is too arid to plant the winter crop of wheat and families have begun to cut down on meals. While her grandson Sultan nibbles on a roti, Shanti lies wrapped in a blanket, ignoring the hunger pangs. Her son and daughter-in-law have gone to work as daily wagers in Sehore near Bhopal, 300 kilometres away, leaving...

Agricultural insurance is supposed to protect farmers from financial hardships and risks when crop losses and damage takes place due to extreme weather events such as drought, cyclone, hailstorms, flood etc. However, in reality this does not hold true in India. Due to the failure of crop insurance schemes in India, there has been a deepening of agrarian crisis and rural distress in the recent times, particularly in the backdrop of...

-Hindustan Times The impact of climate change on India’s agriculture is more evident than ever before, but millions of small and marginal farmers do not have adequate safeguards, said a study released on Friday. The country’s farm sector is considered highly vulnerable to shifts in weather patterns as half of the cropland is dependent on rainfall, drawing around 60% of the farmers to the core of the climate-proofing debate. Climate change increases frequency...

-The Indian Express Farmers tend to lose out irrespective of whether crop prices go up or down. Government needs to rectify this. The price of tur/ arhar dal had recently skyrocketed to Rs 200 per kg and the consumer as well as the government were at their wits’ end. Not very long ago, high onion prices were making everyone shed copious tears. In both the cases, there was profit maximisation by...