-The Telegraph This year, a combination of factors is hurting the agriculture sector immensely A quiet, reverse transformation is happening in the countryside, and it is disconcerting. This sowing season, growing numbers of farmers are falling back on their bullocks as fuel prices are piercing the roof. The tractor, the symbol of modern farming, is becoming a luxury in the literal sense. The conventional ploughing equipment tied to bullocks costs only a...

-Press release by International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems dated 30th March, 2021 * New report sounds alarm on control of food tech, farming data, and corporate takeover of UN multilateral agencies. * Civil society  and social movements can fight back, boosting post-pandemic resilience, slashing agriculture’s GHG emissions by 75%, and shifting $4 trillion to sustainable food and farming. The future planned by agribusiness giants could accelerate environmental breakdown and jeopardize...

-Hindustan Times India’s gross domestic product (GDP) grew 4.5% in the second quarter of the current financial year, the lowest since March 2013. Union Budget 2020-21 is expected to focus on the transformation of rural India with a nearly 15% jump in fund allocation to boost the village economy and raise incomes, particularly of small and marginal farmers, three people aware of the development said on Tuesday. “Transformation of the rural economy is...

-The Indian Express Farmer unions need to expand the scope of their advocacy. Every day, a gold miner in Russia leaves a mine with a wheelbarrow full of sand. Every day, the guard thoroughly checks the sand. On his retirement day, the guard asks the worker, “I know you have been stealing something, but can’t figure out what it is”. The worker whispers back, “I wasn’t hiding anything in the sand,...

-The Hindu Business Line A dispersed pattern of urbanisation leads to sprawl with higher motorisation and pollution. A new urban vision is needed India’s demographic dividend cannot be realised if young entrants to the labour force as well as potential migrants from agriculture do not gain new livelihoods. Hastening of the structural transformation brings with it three mega-challenges for policy-makers: employment of migrants; growing urbanisation; and ensuring better education and vocational training...