-Newsclick.in In an interview, the ‘father’ of India’s Green Revolution, says while technology is necessary, policies on procurement and public distribution are far more important in making agriculture economically viable and sustainable in the country. No one has played a more instrumental role in India’s self-sufficiency in food production than Dr MS Swaminathan — world-renowned agricultural scientist, known as the ‘Father of Green Revolution in India’. After getting a PhD from Cambridge...

-The Hindu Business Line After failed efforts to placate angry farmers, the Centre and various States have launched income-support schemes. BusinessLine reports Let’s rewind to mid-2017, when onion farmers in Ahmednagar, Maharashtra, took to the streets. The protests spread like wildfire to Madhya Pradesh. In northern Karnataka, pulses growers were up in arms against crashing prices. minimum support prices were not holding up. Flustered governments began to trot out loan waivers as...

-The Hindu Business Line Eminent agriculture scientist MS Swaminathan, Chairman of the much discussed Farmers’ Commission whose report mooted an MSP at 50 per cent above cost, feels that income support can be given in the form of free inputs or higher procurement as well. While welcoming ‘PM-Kisan’, he says cash transfer should not become a form of patronage and that the focus should shift from loan write-offs to long-term policies....

-VillageSquare.in Income support to smallholder farmers is similar to palliative measures like minimum support prices or loan waivers that do not address the problem of an unsustainable population living on a fixed resource base The government in the budget for this year has announced an allocation of Rs 75,000 crore for direct income transfer of Rs 6,000 annually for every farmer who owns less than 2 hectares of land. This amount...

-Scroll.in In Telangana, large landholders are benefiting disproportionately from the scheme. In Odisha, families of ministers were on initial beneficiary lists. Early on January 25, Saroj Kumar Sahu and Manu Patel, two farmers from a western Odisha village, boarded a bus with around 10 others from their village to travel across the state to Puri. They were among thousands of farmers from the state’s 147 Assembly constituencies who were chosen to attend...