-The Indian Express The Punjab government has sought to bring 5 lh area in the state under maize, as part of the original plan of reducing paddy area by 12 lh between 2012-13 and 2017-18. Jalandhar: For policymakers wanting to wean away Punjab farmers from water-guzzling paddy, 1.35 lakh hectares (lh) area sown under maize this kharif season may not seem bad, even if it is way below the 29.11 lh...

-The Indian Express The failure of populist rural credit schemes stems primarily from poor understanding of farm indebtedness in the first place. From the 1970s, a lot of private investment in tube-well irrigation, farm mechanisation and allied agricultural activities took place with bank credit support. After the establishment of National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) in 1982, institutional credit flows not only accelerated, but also exhibited diversification to fund livestock...

-The Financial Express Flood-affected cotton farmers in Gujarat are now worried about pink bollworm attacks on the cotton crop. According to the farmers, almost the entire Saurashtra region of the state has been stricken by the insect, while north Gujarat has been partially affected. Gujarat is the largest cotton-producing state in India. According to the data of Gujarat’s agriculture department, cotton sowing has been done on over 2.63 million hectares as on...

-The Indian Express Core committee plans to start agitation from August 14 Mumbai: The Maharashtra government said Monday almost 70 lakh farmers out of the total 1.36 crore across the state had registered themselves for the crop insurance scheme this year. The figure almost meets the state target of 78 lakh envisaged in the beginning of the kharif season, even as farmer leaders said 40 per cent farmers could not avail...

Will you go and make complaints to the same public official against whom you have a grievance? Of course not. However, in a judgement dated 21 July, 2017 by a two-judge Supreme Court (SC) bench, it has been observed that officers in charge of implementation of the National Food Security Act (NFSA), were also designated as District Grievance Redressal Officers (DGROs) by several state governments. Section 15 of NFSA The SC...