-Business Standard Many good ideas for agricultural reform should be in the Budget Shoring up the rural economy that has been crippled because of two successive droughts is clearly a major focus of the upcoming Budget. This is imperative also to revive rural demand for goods and services to stimulate overall economic growth. But how Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will seek to achieve this feat is hard to predict, though what he...

-Hindustan Times Bhubaneswar/ Dongargarh: PM Narendra Modi wooed rural India on Sunday, inaugurating a rural-urban or Rurban mission at Dongargarh in Chhattisgarh and exhorting Odisha farmers to sign up for his government’s crop insurance scheme. The Shyama Prasad Mukherji Rurban Scheme, aimed at improving basic infrastructure, was launched from the Maoist-hit district of Rajnandgaon. “When we talk of smart cities, why can’t we talk of smart villages? The villages in our country...

-Livemint.com Spending on irrigation, crop insurance to be doubled; e-platform to be developed for farm produce New Delhi: The government is set to double annual spending on irrigation and crop insurance, and develop a national digital platform for farm produce in order to ensure better prices for farmers, as part of a push to reduce rural distress following the first back-to-back drought in India in three decades. “We’re expecting that the new...

-Business Standard However, the states have broadly agreed to most other issues raised by NITI Aayog task force, including legalising land lease Consensus seems to have eluded a NITI Aayog task force on agriculture on use of genetically modified (GM) technology in pulses and oilseeds from state governments. However, state governments have broadly agreed to most other issues raised by the task force, including legalising land lease. Officials said the task force, which...

-Hindustan Times Khargone (MP): At a time when the agriculture sector is in distress and farmer suicides have become common, a group of farmers from Madhya Pradesh’s Khargone are making use of social media network to practice modern Farming, ensure best prices for their produce, and also prevent crop failure. The group – comprising more than 50 farmers – uses WhatsApp and Facebook to not only stay connected, but also to keep...