-The Telegraph Patna: Farmers Kalpana Prakash and Zahid Khan would share the dais with the President and the chief minister at Delhi's Vigyan Bhavan on Monday when Bihar receives the Krishi Karman award for commendable production of wheat in 2012-2013 despite drought. The occasion would provide Nitish Kumar an opportunity to showcase his government's five-year agriculture roadmap (2012-17), which President Pranab Muherjee had inaugurated in October 2012 amid much fanfare. Thirty-two-year-old Kalpana, a...

-Press Information Bureau (Ministry of Agriculture) As per Census conducted by Registrar General of India, the total number of agricultural workers in the country comprising cultivators and agricultural labourers increased from 234.1 million (127.3 million cultivators and 106.8 million agricultural labourers) in 2001 to 263.0 million (118.7 million cultivators and 144.3 million agricultural labourers) in 2011. As per Agriculture Census 2010-11, about 85% of the operational holdings accounting for about 44% of...

-Live Mint The scheme represents Rs.2.3 trillion spent on wasteful rural consumption This week marked the eighth anniversary of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government's key rural intervention, launched in 200 districts initially in February 2006. To the extent that such populist schemes helped raise wages without raising productivity. They have contributed more to inflation than to rural wealth. Worse, such schemes have...

-IBN Agriculture and allied activities account for 14.1% of India's GDP in 2011-12 but the proportion of the people dependent for employment in this sector is as high as 58.2.The average annual growth rate of agriculture during the Eleventh Plan Period was about 3.6%. However, declining per capita availability of food grains is of major long term concern. For ensuring nutritional security, it is not only important to increase the per...

-PTI Agriculture and wetlands in India and the rest of the world should be managed in unison to tackle poverty and conserve ecosystems, says a new report. Around six per cent of the world's landmass is classified as either permanent or seasonal wetland. Millions of people directly depend on them for food, water, and other purposes. Researchers estimate that wetlands are worth around USD 70 billion globally each year. However, these areas also face...