-Hindustan Times PMFBY has run into many of the old problems. The one most troubling issue for farmers is a continuous delay in payouts. The average delay in payment of claims, according to official data, is more than a year from the date of Harvest. When the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY), the country’s flagship crop insurance scheme was launched in June 2016, the idea was to replace complicated, multiple insurance...

-The Indian Express The start of the sugarcane season in Maharashtra is marked by the seasonal migration of around 7-8 lakh labourers from Marathwada and North Maharashtra to the mills in various parts of the state. Pune: Maharashtra’s sugarcane crushing is all set to extend by at least a fortnight as mills complain of acute shortage of Harvesting labourers. Mills say that at present around 15-20 per cent less labourers have turned...

-The Hindu Researchers from Institute for Social and Economic Change say price will stabilise only by March 2020 Bengaluru: The price of onion in the country spikes every two years and this is largely triggered by a series of factors, including drought, late arrival of monsoon, floods, crop failure, and supply disruptions, according to a recent study. The current sharp spike in onion price is expected to continue till at least March...

-The Indian Express At current rates of depletion, Punjab’s entire subsurface water resource could be exhausted in a little over two decades. Jalandhar: As the discussion around Punjab’s massive groundwater crisis becomes more urgent, there is an increasingly stronger accent on diversification of crops, and a move away from water-guzzling paddy. At a meeting over the weekend, Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), Ludhiana, decided to strengthen maize — the most important alternative to...

-The Hindu Business Line India can benefit substantially on multiple fronts such as nutritional security, energy and water utilisation and even cut its greenhouse gas emissions if it promotes the cultivation of coarse cereals, showed a study by researchers from India, Austria and the US. During the Green Revolution of the 1960s and the 1970s, the focus has mainly been on increasing rice and wheat output. As a result, a large number...