-The Financial Express For most consumers, ‘organic’ is probably a code for ‘safe’ or ‘residue-free’, not necessarily produce grown without chemical fertilisers and pesticides. But marketers use the tag to tap into a seam of fear in some urban parents who are so anxious about health that they are willing to pay for advertising that spells ‘well-being’. A brand of ‘organic’ jaggery, for example, on the shelves of Reliance Fresh stores...
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Monsoon in India: Country feels the pinch as rainfall 5 pct less than normal
-The Financial Express The cumulative rainfall for southwest monsoon this year (July to September) has been 5% less than normal. The distribution has been uneven, with excess rains in some parts and shortage in several other areas like Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh and parts of Maharashtra. This has impacted sowing. As compared with last year, sowing is lower for foodgrains and oilseeds. Even the government’s first advance estimates say that...
More »NITI Aayog's three-year action plan on agriculture raises hope as well as concerns
-Down to Earth In a major digression from the current discourse on GM crops, the report claimed that the farmers in India have “enthusiastically embraced” GM seeds For the first time since the five-year plans were scrapped, the NITI Aayog presented the three-year action plan last week. The report, which draws on recommendations made by the Task Force on Agricultural Development and a group of secretaries appointed by PM Modi at...
More »'Input prices have pulled down farm income' -TV Jayan
-The Hindu Business Line New Delhi: A substantial increase in input costs of materials has led to a decline in crop income over the years. This has resulted in the purchasing power of farmers not improving even though there was an increase in farm output, an official report has said. “By and large, the per hectare real value of output increased for most crops during the period 2004-05 to 2013-14, but the...
More »Direct selling, adivasi style -Chitrangada Choudhury
-The Hindu Business Line At an organic market in Odisha, middle-class consumers get to interact with the producers of their food and appreciate traditional knowledge systems One Sunday morning in January, I visited an organic produce market located amidst dense bougainvillea creepers and rows of trees, on the grounds of the six-decade-old Christian Hospital in Bissamcuttack, a town in western Odisha’s Rayagada district. In policy and public imagination, Odisha, particularly its western districts...
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