-Down to Earth In a major digression from the current discourse on GM crops, the report claimed that the farmers in India have “enthusiastically embraced” GM seeds For the first time since the five-year plans were scrapped, the NITI Aayog presented the three-year action plan last week. The report, which draws on recommendations made by the Task Force on Agricultural Development and a group of secretaries appointed by PM Modi at...

-Business Standard Many good ideas for agricultural reform should be in the Budget Shoring up the rural economy that has been crippled because of two successive droughts is clearly a major focus of the upcoming Budget. This is imperative also to revive rural demand for goods and services to stimulate overall economic growth. But how Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will seek to achieve this feat is hard to predict, though what he...

-Business Standard Govt should revamp agricultural marketing to increase farmers' earnings and amend land-leasing laws Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has met farm sector representatives for pre-Budget consultations at a time Indian agriculture is passing through a bad patch - especially because of two years of consecutive drought. Predictably, therefore, most participants pitched for more credit on soft terms, higher minimum support prices (MSP) for crops and the expansion of irrigation facilities to...

-Livemint.com The most glaring implication of the proposed deficiency payments is that it makes the state give up its responsibility of intervening in markets During the past few months, there has been a highly contested debate on the merits, viability and feasibility of crop insurance in India given the large number of small farmers and the large amount of subsidy involved that is not being effectively used as the coverage of...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: In an effort to raise agriculture productivity and raise farm prices, government's premier think tank NITI Aayog is considering a series of big ticket agriculture reforms that include changes in the fertiliser policy to allow free import of urea, explore transgenic crops in pulses and oilseeds and make land laws transparent. A paper emerging from the work of Aayog's task force on agriculture development, has moving fertiliser...