-National Herald Agriculture, food and trade policy expert Devinder Sharma writes: “My understanding is that only agriculture can reboot the economy, sustain millions of livelihoods, and reduce global warming.” At a time when Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz says that neo-liberalism is ‘dead and buried’, and the world as a result is increasingly grappling with the gigantic problems of rising unemployment, gnawing inequality and climatic change reaching a tripping point, agriculture alone has...

-Down to Earth The method was promoted as low-cost investment on part of farmers, but huge amounts are being raised for statewide implementation Andhra Pradesh has played a leading role in promoting agroecological farming in the past two decades. The Community Managed Sustainable Agriculture (CMSA) initiative of the state is often cited as a major intervention which encouraged farmers to gradually move away from chemical-intensive farming. However, despite such efforts, just 1...

-Hindustan Times Farming must become sustainable since agriculturists are struggling to build resilience against many threats I spent international women’s day in Mangalagiri, in Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh, with Usha Rani. As a single mother for 17 years, she has raised two children (now in second-year college and in high school). Three years ago, she switched to natural farming. On less than half an acre, she practises multicropping, growing maize, banana,...

-Working Paper No. 74, Nabakrushna Choudhury Centre for Development Studies, Bhubaneswar In this paper, we revisit the well-known debate on the inverse relationship between farm-size and agricultural productivity. Using unit level data from Situation Assessment Survey (SAS) of Agricultural Households in the 70th Round National Sample Survey (NSS), we test the relationship between yield (output per hectare) and land operated as well as the relationship between net returns per hectare and...

-The Hindu The outgoing CEA also batted for the lateral entry of talent into the government The compensation payable to the States for revenue loss arising due to GST is just ?5,000 crore, far lower than was estimated, according to Chief Economic Adviser Arvind Subramanian. In a candid interview to The Hindu, the outgoing CEA also batted for the lateral entry of talent into the government, saying that it was a “no brainer”...