-The Indian Express This is the first time that the IPCC, whose job it is to assess already-published scientific literature to update our knowledge of climate change science, has focused its attention solely on the land sector. Pune: A new report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released Thursday presents the most recent evidence on how the different uses of land — forests, agriculture, urbanisation — are affecting and...

-Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER), Working Paper 383 Farmers, especially small and marginal, do not directly trade in agri-futures market in India. Their small size, lack of trust and understanding of futures market and dependence on middlemen, are some of the main deterrents. The role of Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) is crucial in this context since they can procure commodities, aggregate them and ensure that size and...

-The Times of India PILIBHIT: Raising concern over depleting groundwater, State Wetland Authority (SWA) has decided to ban the cultivation of summer paddy that survives only on the groundwater.   According to an estimate of the state agriculture department, summer paddy — the transplantation of which has already been started — is produced in around 3.5 lakh hectares in more than 20 districts of western UP stretched up to the Tarai region. The decision...

Just a few days ahead of the Kisan Mukti March in Delhi NCR, the provisional results of the Agriculture Census 2015-16 became available in the public domain. The report, among other things, highlights the long-term problems affecting Indian agriculture including fragmentation of land holdings (particularly the marginal and small ones) and shrinking average size of farm land. The provisional results of the latest Agriculture Census reveal that at the national level...

-The Indian Express The study ‘Agrarian distress: Why Vidarbha and Marathwada alone’, which aims to identify the causes behind the farm crisis in these regions, says top priority should be given to watershed strategies while planning mitigation measures. Pune: Subsidies and debt waivers cannot resolve the agrarian crisis, according to a study by the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics (GIPE). The study ‘Agrarian distress: Why Vidarbha and Marathwada alone’, which aims...