-The Business Standard     They were unimpressed by the UPA's misguided socialism, but they worry about the new regime's free-market orientation too Consider this paradox. The Congress Party-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) was decimated in the elections in spite of several years of good monsoon and rising Agricultural Production. Consider another paradox. This was the regime that implemented policies that were presumed to be pro-farmer: the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, the...

The state of Punjab, earlier regarded as an agriculturally developed region of India, has been passing through a severe economic crisis. The capital-intensive mode of production, propagated by the green revolution in the mid-1960s is turning out to be non-viable for the small peasantry and hence, they are being involuntarily manoeuvered towards shifting away from farming. Based on a field study in Punjab during the year 2012-13, it was observed...

-The Hindu   Banana is cultivated in Erode district all through the year. Every year, after the plant bears fruits the main stem (called pseudo stem) needs to be removed, since the main plant starts to wither and the crop continues to grow through offshoots for two or more years. Normally farmers employ labour to either cut or uproot the pseudo stems and throw them by the roadside. For this, a farmer needs...

-The Telegraph   The European Union has banned the import of Indian mangoes as they failed to pass its stringent biosecurity regulations. Does India too need tougher biosecurity laws to protect its crops from pests and diseases? When a few pesky fruit flies tried to migrate from India, they ended up sparking a debate on the effectiveness of India's agricultural biosecurity laws and regulations. While some agriculture experts believe the laws are...

-PTI   Agartala: A farmer's successful attempt at growing grapes in a village in Tripura, considered as climatically unsuitable for the fruit plant, has made agricultural scientists in the state sit up and take notice. Muktal Hussain, a farmer of Rangkang village in Gomati district, is so happy, and surprised too, with his experimental planting of grape plants, which gave him enough fruits, that he now dreams of setting up a vineyard....