-The Indian Express The unprecedented procurement of pulses and oilseeds in the last couple of years has created problems — and opportunities. If there’s one area in agriculture where the Narendra Modi government has probably broken fresh ground, it is in the procurement of pulses and oilseeds.   During the 2016-17 and 2017-18 agricultural years (July-June), the Central agencies — National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (Nafed), Small Farmers’ Agribusiness Consortium (SFAC)...

-The Hindu With no money to feed them, farmers abandon animals It could take Vijay Rawat a week’s labour to build a temporary fence of Babool tree branches and twigs around his 2.5 bigha field. The thorny plants make the process arduous; he has already suffered cuts and scratches. But if he wants to protect his valuable crops, there is little choice. He cannot afford a wire fence. For farmers like Vijay Rawat...

-The Hindu In addition to reforming the credit system, agriculture should be made profitable Rural agrarian distress is firmly at the centre of the national discourse today, triggered by the recent Assembly election results in the Hindi heartland as well as continuous farmer agitations in the past two years (picture). Just a month ago, the farmers’ march in Delhi highlighted the reality of their deprivation, anger and resolve. Quite remarkably, their presence...

-Livemint.com Thanks to the debt relief commission, 11,354 Kerala farmers have benefited from a disbursement of over ?11 crore, and there are no farmer suicides in the state Ernakulam/ Bengaluru: Back in 2006, Kerala came face to face with an explosive situation. Ironically in a state dominated by Communist politicians, farming was dominated by export-oriented cash crops such as rubber and pepper, prices of which had plunged in the global market. It...

-The Indian Express The new year could witness the first national elections being fought on farmers’ issues. And it could test both the ruling BJP pushed to the defensive, particularly in the larger sugar-producing states, and the Congress under pressure to deliver loan waivers If 2017 saw the beginnings of agrarian unrest in large swathes of the country, 2018 brought it centrestage as the numero uno political issue. And almost everyone’s...