-Hindustan Times Farming must become sustainable since agriculturists are struggling to build resilience against many threats I spent international women’s day in Mangalagiri, in Guntur district of Andhra Pradesh, with Usha Rani. As a single mother for 17 years, she has raised two children (now in second-year college and in high school). Three years ago, she switched to natural farming. On less than half an acre, she practises multicropping, growing maize, banana,...

  Growth in rural wages not only indicates economic prosperity of the masses, it is also considered important so as to generate effective demand for goods and services, which is produced by various sectors of the economy. When money becomes available in the hands of rural workers due to government spending on programmes such as Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), it generates demand for commodities. The production of commodities...

-Down to Earth Farmers living in tribal areas in Jharkhand alleged that industrialists and the government are conspiring to ruin diverse traditional seeds and crops Farmers from Jharkhand’s Singhbhum district, a tribal area, alleged that the government and industrialists are trying to destroy their traditional knowledge of agriculture and looting cultivable land. This happened on the last day of a conference held on ‘Traditional agriculture: challenges and possibilities’ at Chaibasa this month. These...

-The Hindu Business Line As the sector pays the price for governments’ populism, it is time for an all new approach Earlier this month, Australia and Brazil dragged India to the WTO for its market-distorting policies on sugar. Their contention was that the subsidies, including the extent of farmer assistance, far exceeded the norms set by the WTO resulting in higher sugar production/exports which dampen the international prices and, consequently, hurt their...

-The Times of India PILIBHIT: Raising concern over depleting groundwater, State Wetland Authority (SWA) has decided to ban the cultivation of summer paddy that survives only on the groundwater.   According to an estimate of the state agriculture department, summer paddy — the transplantation of which has already been started — is produced in around 3.5 lakh hectares in more than 20 districts of western UP stretched up to the Tarai region. The decision...