-Hindustan Times Small and marginal farmers comprise 85% of the land holdings in India. Social protection is a survival tool for the rural poor, who have no easy access to wage labour. India recognised the need for social protection early on and introduced a slew of social protection programmes like the National Rural Livelihoods Mission. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) provides 100 days of assured labour wages...

-The Hindu Agricultural experts say small farmers are working under severe economic constraints — their earnings are very low and they are indebted — and hence many are compelled to leave farming. Punjab’s farming sector is in crisis and showing signs of sickness as it suffers from falling productivity and shrinking returns. Farmers are reeling under debt, and owing to low profitability, small farmers, in particular, are quitting farming. In the past...

-The Times of India BHUBANESWAR: Experts feel that notwithstanding individual causes behind farmers' suicides, so many of them resorting to the extreme step shows that the average peasant in the state is in severe monetary distress. Unofficial sources put the death toll at 40 in the past two months. "Some of the suicides may turn out to be for reasons other than agricultural loss. But, the larger picture indicates financial constraints are...

-The Hindu Business Line Policy interventions, skill development enhance opportunities for farmers Agriculture, the largest livelihood generating activity, is fast transforming itself from a supply-driven to a demand-demand scenario. The discerning consumer (urban, rural and global) is increasingly demanding better quality, multiple choices, food safety and convenience. Diversification is the key to convene these changing demand patterns with supply, and more importantly, to act as an overall risk mitigant for the producer himself....

-Livemint.com Though pulsations may eventually ease, it is time to think of long-term cures Pulses have been throbbing hard and loud in India for sometime now. And not only because of prices, but also the pace in which it accelerated to 30% annually last month, three times the rate of increase six months ago. Besides angry television anchors and electoral evocations, hoarding, raids and truck thefts have set hearts thumping too....