-One World South Asia The World Bank signs an agreement with India to inject $ 352 million into the National Dairy Support Project, an initiative designed to revive the flagging fortunes of milk production in the country. Other than being crucial to the nutritional security of the country’s population; dairy farming or dairying is also a major source of livelihood for 147 million rural households in India. Spurred by the success of the...

-The Economic Times   Decontrol of urea is likely to affect Agricultural Production adversely for several reasons. First, it will immediately push up prices of all nitrogenous fertilisers and reduce their usage, thereby lowering crop yields.  Second, it may also lead to increase in the prices of DAP and other mixed fertilisers due to shift in demand in their favour. Urea decontrol may not result in more balanced use of N, P and...

The government should immediately announce a 10% increase in the floor price of cotton and rice to protect farmer incomes if it imposes a ban on the export of these commodities, India's two most economically significant cash crops, according to the Commission of Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP), a body which advises the government on the pricing policy for major farm produce. "Any ban on export is an implicit tax on...

The northern region of Gujarat State in western India is semi-arid and prone to droughts, receiving almost all of its rain during the monsoon season between June and September. But for the past three decades, many crop and dairy farms have remained green—even during the dry season. That's because farmers have invested in wells and pumps, using massive amounts of electricity to extract water from deep aquifers. The government has artificially propped...

Experts agree that the economic and environmental costs of interlinking India's rivers far outweigh its projected benefits. Some people believe it is the one-stop solution to prevent floods and droughts, reduce water scarcity, raise irrigation potential and increase foodgrain production in the country. But others say it is just another grandiose scheme involving huge costs and leading to long-term ecological consequences. The contentious idea of interlinking India's rivers has come...