-Livemint.com Experts outline steps to tackle the woes of the rain-dependent sector, with Met dept seeing a below-normal monsoon Agriculture in India is going through one of its worst periods in recent times. On the one hand farm incomes have been dented by falling prices of crops—both of key crops like rice, wheat and cotton as well as Cash crops like rubber, basmati rice, guar gum and potatoes. On the other,...

-Business Standard Greater adoption of Cash crops combined with a collapse in the prices of agri-commodities has led farmers to the brink in major agricultural areas According to the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) data, nearly 64 per cent of all farmer suicides in the country in 2013 took place in the four states of Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala, raising the question: why is rural stress resulting in farmer suicides...

-IPS News NAYAGARH (IPS): Kama Pradhan, a 35-year-old tribal woman, her eyes intent on the glowing screen of a hand-held GPS device, moves quickly between the trees. Ahead of her, a group of men hastens to clear away the brambles from stone pillars that stand at scattered intervals throughout this dense forest in the Nayagarh district of India’s eastern Odisha state. The heavy stone markers, laid down by the British 150 years...

-Tehelka Agrarian policies are proving to be an albatross around the neck of ordinary farmers Amon Singh Kevat, 70, a small farmer in Vidisha, Madhya Pradesh, spent three long days in April waiting for his harvest to be picked up from an open plot that served as a mandi (procurement centre for agricultural produce). In need of money for a marriage in the family, Kevat didn’t even go home for meals. But...

-The Hindu With unseasonal rain laying waste vast areas under the rabi crop in north India earlier this year and the threat of a deficient monsoon looming, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme could act as a real salve for distressed farm workers and labourers. The World Bank’s brief statement on the scheme on Tuesday to this effect, as part of its latest India Development Update, concurs with recent...