-Live Mint   In an unprecedented move, farmers in East Godavari and adjoining districts of Andhra Pradesh declared a crop holiday last season, refusing to cultivate paddy in this fully irrigated region of the state. Farmers say the reason for this drastic step is that cultivating paddy has become unremunerative and they are left with no other choice. The agrarian crisis and its neglect by successive governments are responsible for the low...

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) is under pressure from several quarters. One such source of pressure is the rural rich whose concerns were recently voiced by Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar, when he raised the bogey of shortage of supply of farm workers because of the employment guarantee scheme. The fact is that the national average for workdays generated under the scheme is less than half of the...

Jharkhand has produced more rice than it needs this season, thanks to the monsoon bounty after three consecutive years of Drought, enabling the state to set up procurement centres in all 24 districts for the first time. Till now dependent on Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh for its annual requirement of around 20 lakh tonne of par boiled, or usna, rice, Jharkhand is likely to log a bumper harvest of 35-37...

At BANCON (annual bankers' conference) 2011 in Chennai, financial institutions explored avenues for greater participation in agriculture and rural development. There are a few areas in need of additional attention and investment. Green Revolution technologies are scale-neutral but not resource-neutral. Inputs are needed for output; therefore market-purchased inputs become important in providing soil and plant healthcare for higher yields. Social scientists point out that small and marginal farmers will be excluded...

A revamped version of the Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, the government's flagship social sector programme, will be unveiled on November 14. The makeover, crafted by rural development minister Jairam Ramesh and Planning Commission member Mihir Shah, promises to iron out administrative glitches that have dogged the six-year-old scheme, credited for boosting incomes but panned for stoking inflation. "We are ready with version 2 of MGNREGA. It will basically strengthen the...