-Livemint.com Tackle deficiencies of capital mobilization, access to state provisions and women’s participation to boost FPCs across India. In 2017, the Indian government reaffirmed its commitment to reduce rural distress among nearly 93 million farming households through efforts to double farmers’ income. What has been remarkable is the emergence of farmer producer companies (FPCs) as a viable way of supporting this approach. The last two years have been tumultuous. Pro-market legislation introduced in...

-IndiaToday.in From Assam to Odisha and in many other states, floods were a natural phenomenon. But we turned them into monsoon mayhem by squeezing our rivers. Here is why we must rethink our response to this annual crisis. Every monsoon, lakhs of people in Indian states such as Bihar, Assam, Odisha, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal are affected by floods when rivers swell and spread their waters amid pounding rain. Hundreds of men,...

-Down to Earth Farmers are being pushed to suicide amid market shortage   Chilli farmers in Telangana’s Subakkapalli village, Bhopalapalli district, are living their worst nightmare. A new pest, black thrips (Thrips parvispinus), has destroyed over 40 hectares (ha) of standing crop in a matter of months. In Sidduri Ravindra Rao’s farm, the initial signs of the attack were reported in the first week of December last year. He increased the frequency of...

-Financial Express The third advance estimate of wheat production by the agriculture ministry is expected to be released this month. Heatwave conditions since the middle of March have caused significant damage to the standing wheat crop, especially in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, all major producers of the staple cereal. Early estimate says that the crop damage would be of the order of 15-20 million tonne, meaning wheat output in 2021-22 crop...

-Down to Earth Since its launch in 2016, India’s flagship crop insurance scheme has seen a consistent fall in acreage and number of farmers covered Even if a single farmer’s crop is damaged in a village he will get the benefits of insurance  - Prime Minister Narendra Modi had said while launching the government’s flagship Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) from Madhya Pradesh in 2016. The words, however, mean nothing to the farmers...