-The Hindu Such an ambiguity has serious implications for the design and beneficiaries of schemes meant to help them Who is a farmer? What is the government’s definition of a farmer and how many farmers are there in India by that definition? Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar failed to answer that question when it was asked in Parliament last week. The government’s ambiguity has serious implications for the design and beneficiaries of the...

-The Hindu Business Line The Finance Ministry has asked the Agriculture Ministry to complete the payout of two instalments of Rs.4,000 to farmers under the PM Kisan scheme by September 30. This is to boost rural demand in the coming festival season. PM Kisan or Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi is an income support scheme. It provides Rs.6,000 in three equal instalments annually. Initially, the coverage was limited to small and marginal...

-The Hindu Say policymakers induce farmers to adopt incongruent crop pattern, causing water crisis Pune: The water crisis in Maharashtra is a “policy-induced failure”, according to economists and water academics who have specifically warned of the ‘desertification’ of the parched Marathwada region in the near future. “It is the ecological illiteracy of policy-makers and the selfishness of the power elite in inducing farmers across Marathwada to adopt a crop pattern that is not...

-The New Indian Express As polling season concludes across the country, The Sunday Standard puts an ear to the ground and listens in to the expectations that India has from its next government NEW DELHI: Agrarian irony cries out in Punjab, the food bowl of the country, with farmers’ indebtedness only growing in recent years.    The agrarian irony is marked by overproduction in the face of inadequate price, with lopsided institutional credit,...

-The Tribune The transition to sustainable, chemical-free farming is imperative At a time when global temperatures are soaring, a study by a French think tank — Sustainable Development and International Relations (IDDRI) — has shown that agro-ecological farming has the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Europe by 47% and thereby keep the global temperature rise below 2°C. The study comes at a time when the UN's Food and Agricultural Organisation...