-VillageSquare.in Farmer producer companies have started to play an important role in procurement from smallholders, which guards against price crashes that has been plaguing marginalized farmers across the country despite record harvests The agricultural seasons of 2016-17 (Kharif and Rabi) have not been favorable for farmers across the country. In spite of the near-normal monsoon rainfall in India in 2016 coupled with record farm production, wholesale and retail prices for agricultural commodities...

-The Pioneer While the Government has done its bit to boost the output of pulses, it has done little to check the nexus between politicians and grain traders For several decades, production of pulses in India has fallen substantially short in terms of consumption. This persistent deficit has led to intermittent bouts of spike in prices as imports (needed to plug it) have often come after lag and have failed to reach...

-The Indian Express Again, going by NSSO data, while 11.9 per cent of an average Indian agricultural household’s monthly income comes from “farming of animals”, it is well over 24 per cent for Gujarat. Gujarat has a relatively low per agricultural household debt of Rs 38,100, as against the all-India average of Rs 47,000, according to the National Sample Survey Office’s (NSSO) data for 2012-13. Also, 79.2 per cent of the state’s...

-Livemint.com Pulses use less water per unit crop and also address hidden hunger The severe drought across India should hopefully help focus attention on the overuse of water in agriculture. A data analysis by Roshan Kishore in this newspaper last week showed that the average water footprint for five major crops—rice, wheat, maize, sugarcane and cotton—is far higher than global averages. At the root of the problem is a policy framework that...

-The Hindu In a bid to keep pulses price under check, that went sky-rocketing during past few months, the Centre has now decided to create buffer stock of pulses. The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) on Wednesday gave its approval for creation of buffer stock of pulses. The buffer stock will be created in current year itself. In its meeting held here, the CCEA has approved procurement of about 50,000 ton pulses...