-PTI NEW DELHI: Expressing concern over the sustainability of small farms, Agriculture minister Radha Mohan Singh on Saturday said 91 per cent of the total farm holding would belong to small and marginal farmers by 2030. According to the Agriculture Census, the total number of operational holdings in India numbered 138.35 million with an average size of 1.15 hectares. Of the total holdings, 85 per cent are in marginal and small farm...
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How Sikkim could offer lessons to other states in organic farming -G Seetharaman
-The Times of India It's 8:00 am on a Sunday and outside Denzong Cinema in Gangtok's Lal Bazar, the otherwise languid atmosphere is punctured by grocers of two kinds. On one side of the cinema are those who sell vegetables, fruits and spices sourced from outside Sikkim, mostly from Siliguri, 115 km south in West Bengal. On the other side of the cinema, almost completing a triangle, are farmers from the...
More »How Do We Combat Droughts?
-Economic and Political Weekly Agriculture cannot be revived without a different approach to water, soil, crops and research. For the second year in succession, rainfall in the monsoon season has been less than normal. As many as 302 out of the 640 districts in the country have been declared drought-hit and the impact of the drought is the severest in nine major states of south, central and east India. It is striking...
More »NDA junks the ‘dumb peasant’ argument -Anil Padmanabhan
-Livemint.com Traditionally, public policy has tended to view Indian farmers as what is described in economic history as the “dumb peasant” Last week, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government launched a revamped crop insurance scheme. At first glance, the scheme, christened Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, looks mostly like a reworking of the risk cover already in place; actually, it is much more. Not only does it take a big step in de-risking...
More »What Free Basics did not intend to do -Parminder Jeet Singh
-The Hindu The public now sees the Internet not just in market terms, but as a social phenomenon that requires public interest regulation. In its aggressive campaign for Free Basics, couched in simplistic developmental language, Facebook underestimated the political sophistication of the Indian public. It must be regretting it now. The social networking service’s reportedly Rs. 100-crore campaign, through double full-page newspaper advertisements, billboards and television, appears simply to have congealed public...
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