-Livemint.com Wheat sowing is lagging behind last year’s numbers despite a hike in support prices and doubling of import duties to encourage domestic growers New Delhi: Area planted under wheat, the main winter crop, is 6% lower than the year before, showed data on progress of Rabi sowing released by the agriculture ministry on Friday. According to the ministry, wheat has so far been planted in 19 million hectares, compared to the 20.4...

-The Hindu Business Line Procurement of the excess output vis-a-vis a normal year, rather than open-ended purchase, is a viable option A bountiful harvest that implies an increase in output may not always increase the nominal income of the farming sector, which is subject to the behaviour of input and more particularly output prices, which may sometimes move sharply. There can, therefore, be years in which there is a sudden and sharp...

-Livemint.com Farm economist and NITI Aayog member Ramesh Chand on the urgency of agricultural market reforms to meet the target of doubling farm incomes by 2022 New Delhi: Apart from staging protests in Delhi, farmers must make themselves heard in state capitals as well to resolve issues outside the central government’s control, farm economist and NITI Aayog member Ramesh Chand said. In an interview, he spoke of the urgency of agricultural market...

-Scroll.in Halfway through the ambitious Bhavantar Bhugtan Yojana, farmers are protesting and accusing traders of suppressing prices. When the Madhya Pradesh government introduced the Bhuvantar Bhugtan Yojana in August it hoped the new scheme would assuage angry farmers and provide them a cushion against a possible price crash of farm produce. But in the first harvest season after the scheme was introduced farmers continue to get prices below their expectations. Many farmers...

-The Indian Express Modi government’s decision to hike import duty on edible oils has come too little, too late for soyabean farmers Latur: Arun Kulkarni planted soyabean on 10 out of his 14-acre holding in the recent kharif season and harvested 65 quintals of the crop towards September-end. But unlike most of his neighbours, this farmer from Tandulja village in Latur — Maharashtra’s largest soyabean-growing district and the country’s No. 2...