* State-promoted organic farming has picked up in a big way in Andhra Pradesh * The CMSA programme was initiated in 2004 across a mere 400 acres in 12 villages. * Today, it covers 17 lakh acres in over 4,000 villages in the state. The number of farmers participating in CMSA has risen to more than 6 lakh. Call it going back to the roots. Or call it giving the...
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Bank at your doorstep
Technology is helping public sector banks find customers in rural India. This is part of the Centre’s efforts to include villages in the organized financial system; to ensure they are not cheated of their wages. Pilots show promise The current state of rural banking in the country is poor. A recent report, by the National Sample Survey Organization, revealed that 51.4 per cent of the 89.3 million total farmer households in...
More »Low Pulse by Savvy Soumya Misra
Spiralling prices of pulses have shown India’s dependence on imports. Pulses are integral to India’s diet but not its food policy. As a result, supply cannot meet demand. What are the consequences and solutions? Surendra Nath has switched to eating grass-pea, though he knows it is not good for health. But so is tobacco, he argues. He cannot do without pulses and pigeon-pea selling at Rs 100 a kg is beyond...
More »Raising income per hectare is as much a concern as improving yield: Swaminathan by Aparna Alluri
Demanding attention to farmers, agricultural scientist M.S. Swaminathan on Tuesday said increasing income per hectare was as much of a concern as improving yield per hectare. “The National Farmer’s Policy is unique because it shifts focus from the land to its tiller.” Dr. Swaminathan was speaking at a conference here on implementing the Farmer’s Policy, drafted in 2007 by a National Commission with him as chairman. Revisit syllabi Revisit syllabi, he...
More »Now, a farmers’ suicide SENSEX by Sadiq Naqvi
Nearly 2 lakh farmers committed suicide in India since 1997. The share of big five states accounted for 1,22,823 suicides in this 12 year period. The data compiled by the National Crime Records Bureau points out that 16,196 farmers in India ended their life in 2008. K Nagaraj, an economist, in his report Farmers' suicides in India: Magnitude, Trends and Spatial Patterns, says, "The title to land was taken as the...
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