In the midst of COVID-19 lockdown, desert locust swarms have been seen in parts of Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh in the second half of May 2020. The recent attacks by desert locust swarms have caused massive crop damage, depletion in the stock of cattle fodder and destruction of green vegetation in these states. As on 25th May, 2020, over half of Rajasthan’s 33 districts were...
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We Need to Rethink our Economics to Avoid Future Epidemics -Debanjana Dey & Taposik Banerjee
-Vikalp.ind.in During the late 1950s when villages near the Kyasanur Forest in Karnataka started to become crowded, farmers began to clear the forest to find new land for agriculture as well as for construction of houses and roads. This brought them to close contact with the primates in the forest. When Kyasanur Forest Disease (KFD) outbreak took place among monkeys, the virus did not take much time to jump species and...
More »Climate Change Brings the Worst Locust Attack in Decades to India -Kabir Agarwal and Shruti Jain
-TheWire.in The attack is a highly irregular one, say experts. Farmers on the field feel that the measures taken were too little and too late. New Delhi/ Jaipur: Large swarms of desert locusts have entered areas in India where they had not been seen since 1993 and have already caused damage to crops in Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, parts of Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra. The migratory pest has made several incursions into Rajasthan...
More »Problems farmers face are rooted in structural constraints, require regulatory intervention -Mekhala Krishnamurthy
-The Indian Express We must recognise and strengthen the diversity, dynamism, enterprise, and resilience of India’s agricultural markets. Last week, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman signalled the Union government’s intention to enact a new central law that would override existing state regulations that restrict the farmer from legally selling to anyone other than a buyer licensed by the local Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC). The decision to push for a central law comes...
More »New Research: How lockdown has impacted Indian farmers, their yields -Seema Chishti
-The Indian Express The survey has found a “very strong association between food insecurity & farm size, with landless farmers 10 times more likely to skip a meal in the past month compared to large farmers”. Preliminary findings of a survey of more than 1,000 agricultural households across 12 Indian states show that 60% of those who did harvest reported a yield loss, and 1/10th of them could not harvest their crop...
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