-Livemint.com For the first time during the tenure of the present government, overall inflation of food articles is negative, implying a decline in prices Last week the India Meteorological Department (IMD) presented its first forecast for the monsoon this year. The forecast at 97% of the long period average (LPA) suggested yet a third year of normal monsoon rains, following 2016 and 2017. This should have ideally brought cheer to farmers struggling...

-Scroll.in A new report says that a crop-neutral direct payout scheme might be better than paying farmers the difference between market price and production cost. Raising minimum support prices to 1.5 times the cost of production could severely distort agricultural markets, suggests a new report from the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations. The report takes a look at government schemes to bolster the crop procurement process. The Centre offers...

-Livemint.com Farmers continue to be vulnerable to frequent episodes of losses that neither the state nor the markets have been able to mitigate The dramatic long march to Mumbai involving thousands of distressed farmers on 12 March is a remarkable feat of peaceful protest against the state, given its apathy towards farmers’ distress as well as its failures in safeguarding tribal land rights. However, what is surprisingly missing in this poignant narrative...

-The Hindu Business Line Eleven years since its inception, the State’s farmer’s debt relief commission has quietly eased the burden of debt on poor farmers, and grown to be a model worth emulating Earlier this week 35,000 debt-ridden farmers coursed through Maharashtra, walking 180 km on blistered soles, to converge at Mumbai’s Azad Maidan demanding freedom from debt and fair compensation for their produce. As the government scrounged for solutions, it could’ve...

-Down to Earth The storm spoiled standing crops in Rajasthan, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh When farmers were already trying to cope with the losses they had incurred after the last hailstorm in February, March 4 saw fresh hailstorms in Rajasthan, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. After losing 50 per cent to 90 per cent of its standing crops to the storm and erratic rains, several farmers’ organisations seek compensation. “Crops of mustard, barley,...