-Revitalising Rainfed Agriculture Millets are considered as smart crops that are resilient to climate stress and have nutritional advantages. Odisha’s initiative in millets, from farm to plates, has been intervening through four verticals in production (with new agronomic practices), processing, marketing and consumption (includes awareness campaigns and also through inclusion in nutritional programmes). Odisha also started procurement of mandia/ragi (finger millet) since 2018-19. These have important lessons for other states in...

-The Hindu Unions to study proposal, return for talks on January 22. Farm union leaders will consider a proposal from the Central government to suspend the implementation of three contentious farm laws for the next one and a half years while a committee is formed to look into their demands. Union leaders said the Centre had also offered to submit an affidavit to the Supreme Court to this effect. They will discuss the...

-CaravanMagazine.in For over a month, lakhs of farmers from Punjab and Haryana have been camped on Delhi’s borders in one of the largest agrarian protests in India’s history, while talks with the government on withdrawing three farm laws that deregulate the sector persist. At the other end of the country, over the past six years, the agrarian system in Telangana has seen major systemic shifts, after the formation of the state...

-CaravanMagazine.in In 2006, the Bihar government deregulated the agricultural sector, and largely removed government oversight over food grain procurement. Previously a majority of food grain procurement happened through the Agricultural Produce Market Committee, a marketing board run by the state government that would organise mandis—wholesale markets—where farmers could directly sell their produce to the Food Corporation of India or the State Farming Corporation at the established minimum support price. The MSP...

-ThePrint.in Protesting farmers didn’t approach the court, neither did the Modi govt. And the SC put the constitutionality of the laws on the back burner. In rejecting the Supreme Court-appointed expert committee to mediate between farmers and the Narendra Modi government, the farmers’ organisations have not only wisely sidestepped a possible trap, but they have also reaffirmed a basic principle of democratic accountability and responsible governance. Let there be no confusion about it....