-The Business Standard   The new grain pricing policy for 2012-13 rabi marketing season seems a half-hearted attempt to make farmers grow more oilseeds and pulses, which are in short supply. This is apparent from a hefty hike of Rs 650 to Rs 700 a quintal, or around 35 per cent, in the minimum support prices (MSPs) of oilseeds and pulses and a relatively modest increase of Rs 115, or 10 per...

-The Times of India   Ahead of elections in Punjab and Uttar Pradesh, the government on Tuesday announced an increase of up to 39% in the support price for farm goods in what is being billed as a Diwali gift for farmers. But the move has raised fears of a further spike in food inflation, which crossed the 10% mark last week. While the smallest increase was in case of wheat, where the...

For once, it is a happy farewell to the monsoon. An indulgent rain god, who overstayed for a week to compensate two successive years of drought in Jharkhand, today departed with the golden promise of a bumper winter yield. Weathermen at the Patna Meteorological Office confirmed that the monsoon trough had become weak after October 11, but faded away only today. “The rains have officially withdrawn from Jharkhand. But several parts of...

The pile of jute sticks arranged cone-like and glistening in the sun stood tall over the congregation as they offered prayers at the janaja of Syed Ali. It was around noon, the time Ali died yesterday, felled by a police bullet in the head. He and other jute cultivators had gathered at the Bechimari weekly market like they did every Monday with their produce of jute fibre; fibre that is meticulously shorn...

Heavy damages estimated for in cotton, chana, castor crop. Unseasonal rains in the state of Gujarat during September - November, 2010 has cost the state agriculture sector Rs 3,312 crore with key cash crops including groundnut, cotton, castor seed and pulses taking a major blow among other agriculture commodities. The state minister for agriculture, Dilip Sanghani on Thursday informed that as of December 31, 2010 the total damage to the state agriculture...