-The Hindu   Udupi (Karnataka): The Sri Kshetra Dharmasthala Rural Development Project (SKDRDP) will promote agricultural cultivation in barren lands in Udupi district. Dugge Gowda, Director of district unit of SKDRDP, said that in the present year, the SKDRDP had selected 571 families and provided them with 1,059 acres of barren lands in the district. These families were being encouraged to cultivate paddy and vegetables in these barren lands. They were also being provided...

-The Citizen.in This piece is a rejoinder to an article by D K Joshi, which appeared in ‘The Indian Express' on June 4, 2014. The main arguments made by the author are neither new nor unique. Many neoliberal economists, including some occupying crucial policy-making positions have been making arguments which propose dilution of Minimum Support Price (MSP) policies to take care of excess food stocks with the government and also control...

-The Times of India   LUCKNOW: With the spectre of a drought-like condition looming large in the state, the contingency plan of the government, too, is severely deficient on two basic component: power and seeds. There is no special plan to provide power to farmers who are already desperate due to delayed rains, to help them irrigate their farms for paddy saplings. Besides, seeds are hardly available in government storages. In drought-like situation,...

-The Business Standard   Rajkot (Gujarat): The Gujarat government has received lukewarm response from farmers for the mobile applications launched by it for providing them information related to agriculture. Hardly one percent farmers are using mobile applications in the state for receiving information from the government, according to state government and industry officials. The Gujarat government has so far launched around 20 mobile applications for passing on relevant agri-related information to farmers. Some...

-The Hindu Business Line     A set of technologies that deals with production and marketing constraints can work wonders Indian agriculture faces herculean challenges today; yet, the near- and the medium-term outlook on agriculture and agri-businesses seem bright. Growing urbanisation and changing food habits, malnutrition plus declining areas under foodgrain pose a big threat to food security. Agriculture and food production are strongly influenced by international trade, credit availability, development co-operation, climate change and environmental...