-DNA Most of Europe avoided the fate of India, because of a very strict feudal law — that of following primogeniture, a system of inheritance by the firstborn (usually the first born son). Karnataka — preceded by UP, Punjab and Maharashtra — is the fourth state to have waived off loans taken by farmers. However, this is not going to be the end of the matter. You are likely to...

-Livemint.com Maharashtra’s capping of farm loan waiver will benefit farmers of drought-prone regions more than those in prosperous western, northern areas Mumbai: By capping the farm loan waiver at Rs1.5 lakh per farmer regardless of land holding, the Maharashtra government has ensured that farmers in the critically affected Marathwada and Vidarbha stand to gain more than those in the prosperous western and northern regions. Farm activists and at least one member of the...

-IndiaSpend.org   The failing economics of such farms–agricultural households in the south are most indebted–are exacerbated by additional loans that families take to meet health issues, leaving them with diminished ability to invest in farming. Nearly 70% of India’s 90 million agricultural households spend more than they earn on average each month, pushing them towards debt, which is now the primary reason in more than half of all suicides by farmers nationwide,...

-The Times of India Growing grass and selling it in the market may be more profitable than cultivating crops like wheat, rice, pulses or oilseeds. This bizarre conclusion, a reflection of the desperate conditions of Indian farmers, can be reached if one looks at how the value of various crops has changed over the last five years. Between 2011-12 and 2015-16, the total value of cereals and pulses produced in the country went...

-Livemint.com Forgiving farm loans is no solution. The data shows there’s a far more fundamental problem—most agricultural households are unable to keep body and soul together. There’s nothing new about rural distress. Nor is it surprising. If the income of almost 70% of farm households is less than their consumption expenditure, according to the government’s own data, then it’s obvious they’ll be “distressed”. Yet that’s the inescapable conclusion from the National Sample...