-Down to Earth Farmers are being pushed to suicide amid market shortage   Chilli farmers in Telangana’s Subakkapalli village, Bhopalapalli district, are living their worst nightmare. A new pest, black thrips (Thrips parvispinus), has destroyed over 40 hectares (ha) of standing crop in a matter of months. In Sidduri Ravindra Rao’s farm, the initial signs of the attack were reported in the first week of December last year. He increased the frequency of...

-Hindustan Times Field studies and market trends show wide disparity between drop in crop yield and drop in wheat arrival at mandis in semi-arid belt of Punjab’s Malwa region Bathinda: Field studies conducted by the state agriculture authorities reveal that districts in the semi-arid belt of Punjab’s Malwa region have recorded a drop of 8-17% in wheat yield even as the market trend indicates a much wider gap in crop arrival in...

-Financial Express The third advance estimate of wheat production by the agriculture ministry is expected to be released this month. Heatwave conditions since the middle of March have caused significant damage to the standing wheat crop, especially in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, all major producers of the staple cereal. Early estimate says that the crop damage would be of the order of 15-20 million tonne, meaning wheat output in 2021-22 crop...

-Outlook India Better prices luring Indian farmers to sell their produce to private traders for sale in the global markets. Should India need to worry? One man’s loss is another man’s gain. And here, in a rare circumstance, the Indian farmers seem to be on the gaining side. First, the Centre had to bow in front of the community and revoke its three farm laws, and now, because of the Russia-Ukraine war,...

-CivilSocietyOnline.com WHEN the Sri Lankan economy collapsed with a sigh recently, prominently sticking out of the debris was a failed attempt to take the island nation into full-scale organic agricultural production. The Rajapaksa government had virtually overnight ordered a switch to organic agriculture to save foreign exchange on the import of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. But going organic, instead of being the solution, became a bigger problem with food crops failing and the...