A growing shortage of farm hands and smaller land holdings are forcing many farmers to mechanise their farms, allowing multinational agri implement companies to tap into Indian market. A 2006 study by consulting firm Zinnov said that the agri equipment market in India would grow at a compounded rate of 5% between 2006 and 2010 to touch $8 billion. Today, a large number of Chinese, Japanese, American and Italian firms has...

Himachal Pradesh has now brought wheat and barley crops under an insurance scheme to protect them from adverse climatic conditions, an official statement said Sunday. The National Agricultural Insurance Scheme will cover wheat and barley crops too across the state during the 2010-11 rabi season, said the statement. Earlier, maize, paddy, potato and ginger crops were covered. Likewise, the government last year initially launched an apple crop insurance scheme in Shimla and...

Torrential rain over the past two weeks has damaged 20 per cent of the standing crops, and the loss has been estimated at Rs. 500 crore. Minister for Agriculture Umesh Katti told presspersons here on Thursday that crops about to be harvested were damaged in Chitradurga, Kodagu, Haveri, Shimoga, Chikmagalur, Mandya, Hassan, Gadag, Belgaum and Chickballapur districts. Crops such as jowar, paddy, maize, ragi and potato were damaged extensively in some...

The prospects of a bumper foodgrain yield during the monsoon have considerably dimmed as the threat of cyclone looms large and heavy rains continue to batter several coastal districts. Standing crop spread over an estimated 2.83 lakh hectares (a little over 7 lakh acres), according to preliminary estimates, is under water in six coastal districts. The extent could be much higher after the assessment of the damage is complete. A cyclonic...

Never mind wishful thinking by the government and RBI. Food will never be cheaper than what it is today. Not this year. Or in future. The reason is simple. Growing food in India has become extremely expensive. Crops are pricier even before they reach the market and face the pulls and tugs of rising local demand and exports. The farmer’s single biggest cost now is labour. Farm labour wages have doubled...