-The Hindu A wide variety of spices and fruits grown in the coffee field diversifies the income of tribal farmers Not too long ago, Surya Chhautia was ready to give up on a 100-acre coffee plantation in Golur village in Odisha’s Koraput district. The plantation had been lying unattended, yielding little. But today, Chhautia, 39, from the Valmiki community, is leading a campaign to add another 100 acres to the plantation and to...

-The Hindu To show Indian agriculture as being net taxed to argue for the farm laws has poor conceptual validity Over the past three decades, a major rationale offered in favour of liberalising Indian agriculture was that farmers were “net taxed”. In other words, incomes of farmers were kept artificially lower than what they should have been. It was argued that this “net taxation” existed because protectionist policies deprived farmers of higher...

-The Hindu “Only implementation of strategies is being monitored, rather than actual outcomes” New Delhi: In the last year of its mission to double farmers income, the Centre admits that no actual assessment of farm income has been carried out since 2013. Ashok Dalwai, head of the committee on doubling farmers income, told The Hindu that only the implementation of strategies is being monitored, rather than actual outcomes. He cautioned that the impact...

-IDROnline.org The story of a self-help group that boosted livelihoods and household incomes in Odisha, depicted through Madhubani art. In Koraput district, Odisha, lies a remote village called Kanjariguda, home to an Adivasi community of farmers who predominantly grow ragi and rice. The village is so remote that villagers have to walk several kilometres—across forests and mountains—to hull their rice or access basic services such as mobile charging, photocopying, or printing. In 2019,...

-The Indian Express Investment in human capital, science and research remains the Achilles heel of Indian policy. The budget allocation for agriculture research and education has constantly declined from 0.31 per cent of the gross value added of agriculture and allied activities in 2011-12 to 0.24 per cent now Seven years of low crude prices, five years of above normal monsoon topped by good agriculture production, and everything looked positive for a...