-The Tribune With APMC markets heading towards a collapse, the new set of reforms is aimed at encouraging corporatisation, with big business moving into agriculture, storage and marketing. As the experience of US/Europe shows, when unregulated markets become dominant, small farmers are the first to be pushed out of agriculture. Reiterating what former US Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz (during Ronald Reagan’s rule) had declared: “Get big or get out,” Sonny Perdue, US...
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Can raising the approved labour budget from 280.76 crore person-days to 306.6 crore person-days help the unskilled returnee migrants who prefer MGNREGA to Garib Kalyan Rojgar Abhiyaan?
Although social activists and concerned economists demanded at least Rs. 1 lakh crore to be earmarked in favour of the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS), the Finance Minister in her budget speech on 1st February allocated only Rs.61,500 crore to it for the financial year 2020-21. As compared to the fund spent on MGNREGA in 2019-20 (i.e. revised estimate of Rs.71,001.81 crore), the amount set aside for the...
More »Is concrete the way forward in rebuilding the Sunderbans? -Megnaa Mehtta & Debjani Bhattacharyya
-The Telegraph Since 2007, the Bay of Bengal basin has seen at least 15 major cyclones, including Sidr in 2007, Aila in 2009, Phailin in 2013, Hudhud in 2014, Bulbul in 2019 and Amphan this year. Amphan made landfall in the Sunderbans, home to five million people, on May 20. More than 13.2 billion dollars worth of property was destroyed and more than 500,000 people left homeless. An Unesco heritage site,...
More »Conservation Agriculture key to better income, environment protection: Study -TV Jayan
-The Hindu Business Line New Delhi: Resorting to Conservation Agriculture would not only increase crop yield, income and reduce the use of natural resources, but would also confer climate change benefits, according to a study by Indian agricultural scientists and others published in an international journal on Thursday. The study, published in the journal Nature Sustainability, also showed that Conservation Agriculture was key to meeting many of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals...
More »It's time to move away from paddy-wheat cropping cycle to end air pollution
Air quality in North India in general and Delhi National Capital Region (Delhi NCR) in particular plunged to its lowest point in recent years during October-November thanks to a variety of factors. Through media reports one comes to know that stubble burning (also called paddy straw burning/ crop residue burning) is chiefly responsible for the public health crisis in India's capital and its nearby regions. Data accessed from the website...
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