-The TribunePunjab has been using fertilisers in excess to the recommended dosage, which has increased the chemical load in the soil, says KS PannuThe soil health card scheme, started by the Centre in February, 2015, aims to conduct chemical analysis of farm land and issue soil health cards in every 3 years to all farmers of the country. This provides vital data with regard to nutrient deficiencies in the soil...

-Livemint.com Loan waivers and electricity subsidies are band-aids at best; a deeper transformation is needed The past few days have neatly summed up the scale and nature of the challenges facing India’s agriculture sector. First, the provisional agriculture census 2015-16 showed that landholdings have continued their decades-long trend of fragmentation, leading to a further rise in the proportion of small and marginal farmers. Then, 30,000 farmers, who had started their march from...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The increase in farm land holdings, a consistent trend since the 1970s, has been slowing down in the past 20 years but there is a rise in the number of female land holders, a possible indicator of higher involvement in farm activities, the provisional agriculture census 2015-16, has revealed. The trend could mean the association of farming with “kisan bhai (farmer brothers)” might be less exclusively...

-The Hindu Business Line 2.45 million has been lost to urban sprawl between 2010-11 and 2015-16, says survey New Delhi: In an indication of further deepening of a crisis in the agricutural sector, the average size of operational agricultural holdings in the country has declined to 1.08 hectares (ha) in 2015-16 as compared to 1.15 ha in 2010-11, according to the freshly- released provisional agriculture census data released on Monday. Expectedly, the number...

-Firstpost.com Ludhiana: Free meals, payment in advance, free liquor to ease aching limbs after a hard day’s work. Migrant labour in Punjab, mainly from Bihar, West Bengal and Uttar Pradesh, the mainstay of the state’s agriculture sector, has never had it so good. The problem, however, is the decreasing availability of this labour. Ask Baljinder Singh, a farmer with a 10-acre holding in Dakha village. Come sowing season in mid-June, Baljinder...