-Scroll.in A severe shortage of government-distributed pesticides aggravated the crop loss from attacks by brown planthoppers. A twin calamity has struck farmers in Odisha in recent weeks. A moderate to severe drought has affected paddy crops on more than 3.1 lakh hectares of land in over 6,000 villages across 15 districts. In addition, an attack by brown planthoppers – insects that feed on rice plants – has destroyed paddy fields on...
More »SEARCH RESULT
Loan waiver is not the solution -Anjani Kumar and Seema Bathla
-The Hindu We need to revisit the credit policy with a focus on the outreach of banks and financial inclusion Since Independence, one of the primary objectives of India’s agricultural policy has been to improve farmers’ access to institutional credit and reduce their dependence on informal credit. As informal sources of credit are mostly usurious, the government has improved the flow of adequate credit through the nationalisation of commercial banks, and the...
More »Odisha farmer suicides: 'Pesticides failed to kill pests, they killed my father' - Debabrata Mohanty
-Hindustan Times Brown planthoppers have been particularly pestilent in the kharif season this year. Distressed farmers from the nine affected districts in Odisha are setting fire to their destroyed crops. Bargarh: Landless farmer Brunda Sahoo’s hopes soared early October when he saw lush green paddy crop standing on 15 acres he cultivated as a sharecropper. He told his family they could repair their house and marry off his daughter after selling...
More »Odisha's deadly farmlands: Another farmer commits suicides due to crop loss -Priya Ranjan Sahu
-Down to Earth Between 2001 and 2010, over 2,600 farmers committed suicide in Odisha and this year, drought has already broken their economic backbone Brunda Sahu, a farmer in Odisha’s Bargarh district, set his paddy field on fire on Tuesday after he was frustrated with the alleged cold response of the district administration to the crop damaged by pests. A day later, he went to the same field in Kalapani village in...
More »Harprit Kaur, head of the Psychology Department in Punjabi University, interviewed by Meenakshi Sushma (Down to Earth)
-Down to Earth A new study is focusing on identifying vulnerable farmers in Punjab, Maharashtra and Telangana, the three states that experience high rate of suicide In India, farmer suicide is an issue that has been talked about widely. The cases of farmers’ suicide rose by 42 per cent between 2014 and 2015. In 2015, one farmer committed suicide every hour. The latest report of the National Crime Bureau (NCB) shows that...
More »