-Hindustan Times India’s sugar and cotton output is showing signs of falling for the first time in five years and insufficient pulses production could keep prices high, early estimates showed in the midst of a crippling drought across a vast swathe of the country. However, the country will still have a surplus of cereals despite back-to-back drought trimming overall foodgrains output from normal-year levels. Sugar output is projected to fall between 8% and...

-Livemint.com The perception of a farmer as a ‘dumb peasant’ in public policy lies at the core of the agrarian crisis Last month, the agriculture ministry informed Parliament that 2,806 farmers committed suicide in 2015 due to “agrarian reasons”. The data further showed that the highest number of suicides were recorded in Maharashtra (1,841), followed by Punjab (449), Telangana (342), Karnataka (107) and Andhra Pradesh (58), among others. What is common to...

-Business Standard After a hotter than usual summer, a better monsoon would boost agriculture, rural demand Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan's hopes of a normal monsoon this year - after two back-to-back droughts - to boost rural demand could be fulfilled. Though the summer is expected to be hotter than usual, global and domestic forecasts point to good rains this year. Officials of both the weather department and private forecasters said the...

-The Indian Express Yes, except that farmers suffer rules other businessmen never encounter Agriculture is said to be India’s largest private-sector enterprise, engaging nearly 119 million farmers (“cultivators”) and another 144 million landless labourers, as per the 2011 Census. It is even considered the most respectable business, going by the oft-quoted slogan “uttam kheti, madhyam vyapar, kanishtha naukri (supreme is farming, mediocre is trade and most lowly is service)”. But the exalted...

-The Telegraph The recent budget talked about the government's plan to double farm incomes in the next five years. This will be done through investments in rural infrastructure, especially irrigation. About 50 per cent of land under foodgrain production in India is irrigated. This means that half of the foodgrain producing land in India faces weather uncertainties and, hence, those working on them face annual (seasonal) variations in income. These variations...