-Livemint.com According to NCDEX, over 25,000 small and marginal farmers from 13 FPOs have successfully hedged their crops on its trading platform in the past 10 months New Delhi: In a bumper crop year when farmers across the country have been battered by lower crop prices, farmers’ groups are using futures contracts to hedge against price dips during the harvest season. For instance, Samriddhi Mahila Crop Production Co. Ltd, a farmer-producer organization (FPO)...

-Livemint.com Repeated price shocks take the sheen off horticulture crops grown by small and marginal farmers New Delhi: In the past few years, horticulture crops emerged as a favourite for small growers across the country. 2016-17 marks the fifth straight year when production of fruits and vegetables is estimated to surpass that of foodgrains. This signals a fundamental shift in India’s farm economy towards a growing share of horticulture crops, which now...

-Livemint.com On demonetisation’s impact on the agriculture sector, the Economic Survey said higher winter plantings may not necessarily lead to higher production New Delhi: India’s farm sector is entwined in regulation and is a living legacy of the socialist era, the Economic Survey released on Tuesday said, criticizing curbs on marketing of agriculture produce and imposition of stock limits on traders. “While progress has been made in the last two years, producers (farmers)...

-The Hindu The ‘batta’ system of rolling financing has shrunk as money cannot be withdrawn from banks, and bearer cheques pile up Varanasi: For the already distressed weavers and poorly paid labourers in the famous Banarasi sari industry, demonetisation has come as a crippling blow. Withdrawal limits of Rs. 50,000 on current accounts (around a 10th of the actual requirement in the trade) and falling business post November 8 have constrained traders from...

-Scroll.in The Kisan Sangh demanded that the government waive the interest on their farm loans for the current season. Farmers in Chhattisgarh’s Raipur district gave away their vegetables for free on Monday to protest against the impact of demonetisation on their businesses, PTI reported. Nearly 30,000 citizens queued up in the Dharna Sthal area as over 1 lakh kg of vegetables were handed out, PTI reported. Vegetables prices have gone down drastically in...