Paddy growing farmers in Bhandara are passing through a crucial phase. But there is a ray of hope in the form of Vainganga sugar factory. Instead of traditional paddy farming, the farmers are switching over to sugar cane cultivation. Paddy cultivators in Asagaon and Lakhandur have sown sugarcane in 400 hectares of land and till February next year, 1,000/1,200 hectares of land is likely to come under sugarcane cultivation. In...

Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda on Wednesday submitted the Working Group on Agriculture Production report to Indian Prime Minister in New Delhi. It is to mention that Indian Prime Minster on April 8, 2010 constituted the Working Group on Agriculture Production under the chairmanship of the Haryana Chief Minister, Bhupinder Singh Hooda and the Chief Ministers of Punjab, Bihar and West Bengal as members to recommend strategies and action plan...

The papers in this volume, as indicated in the preface, are not envisaged to be mere academic exercises; they are intended to provide the basis for informed discussions among key stakeholders and with policymakers involved in the areas related to agriculture, food security and rural development in India. If achieving self-sufficiency in food is the primary goal of agriculture policy, poverty alleviation is the second. As has been pointed out,...

3,344 acres of barren land to be converted into farmland An agriculture development scheme under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGP) is being launched in 154 of the 187 tribal hamlets in the Attappady Hills in Palakkad. As much as 3,344 acres of barren land will be converted into farmland under 10,405 works with the implementation of the Rs.64-crore scheme, considered a first of its kind. The salient...

The pattern of land distribution has rendered rural landscape of UP disfavourable for farming. The precursor for this is the fragmentation of cultivable land into a large number of `small landholdings'. The process set under the demographic pressure, has caused marginalisation of a vast majority of farmers and posed a severe challenge to the prospects of rural economy and the growth of agriculture in future. Going by the official figure, UP...