A crop-killing fungus is spreading out of Africa towards the world’s great wheat-growing areas IT IS sometimes called the “polio of agriculture”: a terrifying but almost forgotten disease. Wheat rust is not just back after a 50-year absence, but spreading in new and scary forms. In some ways it is worse than child-crippling polio, still lingering in parts of Nigeria. Wheat rust has spread silently and speedily by 5,000 miles in...

KEY TRENDS   • Suicide by self-employed persons in agriculture as a percentage of total suicides at the national level stood at 15.6 percent in 1996, 16.3 percent in 2002, 14.4 percent in 2006, 13.7 percent in 2009, 11.9 percent in 2010, 10.3 percent in 2011, 11.4 percent in 2012 and 8.73 percent in 2013. Suicides committed in the farming sector (by farmers plus agricultural labourers) as a proportion of total suicides in India was 9.4 percent in...