-The Hindu Business Line Need to do more R&D in rainfed agriculture and bring in more policy perspective: Ashok Dalwai Even though rainfed agriculture contributes to 60 per cent of the value of agriculture GDP of India, there is a clear-cut bias towards irrigated areas when it comes to public investment in agriculture in the country. This neglect, together with unsuitable programme design, has ensured that potential of rain-fed areas remains unrealised, a...

  In its 2014 election manifesto, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), among other things, promised to "take steps to enhance the profitability in agriculture, by ensuring a minimum of 50% profits over the cost of production". In his 2018-19 Union budget speech too, the Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley informed the Parliament that the 2014 election manifesto of the BJP had stated that the farmers should get at least 1.5 times the...

-Financial Express The government has asked the Ashok Dalwai committee to oversee the implementation of its recommendations so that the promise of doubling farmers’ income is achieved by 2022. The committee on doubling farmers’ income (DFI), headed by Ashok Dalwai, the CEO of Rainfed Area Authority, will act as an ‘empowered body’ to coordinate with different ministries as well as among various departments within the agriculture ministry, officials said. The empowered group will...

-The Hindu Business Line First nation-wide, agri market intelligence system — to help farmers get better price — will become operational from next kharif The government will give out price and demand forecasts for various major foodgrains and price-sensitive horticulture crops such as onions from the forthcoming kharif season helping farmers take informed decision on growing different crops, a senior official of the Agriculture Ministry said. “We will be making pre-seasonal as well...

-Livemint.com Panel on doubling farm incomes proposes shifting from supply-led to demand-led production system New Delhi: The government should undertake a radical overhaul of the agriculture ecosystem by moving from a supply-push production system to a demand-led one, according to a committee set up by the centre to recommend strategies to double farmer incomes by 2022. The agriculture ministry should also set up an “empowered committee” to operationalize and monitor progress of doubling...