-Hindustan Times Farm experts say cotton crop is considered the largest consumer of pesticides and insecticides and Punjab can reduce its chemical load with a dedicated policy on organic farming Punjab lacks a policy to promote organic cotton cultivation even as farmers associated voluntarily with it see viability of chemical-free production of the cash crop. Farm experts say cotton crop is considered the largest consumer of pesticides and insecticides and Punjab can reduce...

The newly released Situation Assessment Survey of Agricultural Households and Land and Livestock Holdings of Households in Rural India (NSS 77th Round) establishes the fact that the farm households are more and more relying on wage incomes instead of 'net incomes from crop cultivation' for their livelihoods. In Marxian lexicon, proletarisation (a term that we can loosely use for depeasantisation) refers to the process in which the farmers/ tillers are...

-The Hindu A study at the Ludhiana-based Punjab Agricultural University to track the impact of Farmer Producer Organisations (FPO) on the income and employment of farmers in Punjab during 2019-20, has revealed that incomes increased after farmers joined the FPOs and the impact was greater among small, marginal and semi-medium farmers. Chandigarh: The study, titled “Economic Impact of Farmer Producer Organisations on Punjab Peasantry”, asserts that overall, the while permanent labour employment...

-The Indian Express While the two-month national lockdown generally dampened spending, fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies saw certain unusual trends in demand in certain product categories, company executives said. As India remained locked down in April and May to control the spread of the novel coronavirus, people bought more bread, cheese, coffee, and jams — but less fruity cakes. They expectedly bought a lot of hand sanitisers — but not so expectedly,...

-CaravanMagazine.in As swarms of desert locusts descended upon India this year, toxic insecticides were sprayed over two lakh hectares of land to contain their spread. But the measure could have serious environmental and health consequences. India’s Locust Warning Organization, or LWO, a body under the ministry of agriculture, uses fifteen different formulations of eight insecticides for controlling their spread. Five of these insecticides are banned, restricted or withdrawn in one or...