-Deccan Herald Many of India's agricultural practices have barely changed in decades. Reform is long overdue. Nearly a quarter of a century after India launched its first big liberalising reforms in 1991, setting off a new spurt of growth, one area of the country’s economy remains hardly touched: farming. Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a 24-hour, state-run television channel for farmers in May, but has fostered no public debate about how to improve...

-The Indian Express Government should devise a crop-neutral incentive structure to attract farmers to pulses over paddy.  Policymakers and consumers can rejoice in the light of the latest price data. Food inflation in particular has witnessed significant moderation. In May 2015, food prices were up by only 2.3 per cent at wholesale and 5 per cent at retail levels over May last year. The increases in minimum support prices for the...

-The Tribune Transformative approaches to agriculture are the need of the hour. For this, we have to impart climate resilience and rehabilitate economically stressed farming communities of agriculturally developed regions. Since more than two decades now, farmers have been committing suicides in India, a fact that reflects the harsh realities of farming. Most of these farmers were traditional family farmers, leading a lifestyle based on traditions and beliefs. The intensive commercial commodity-based...

-Livemint.com/Bloomberg A smaller harvest in India would ease a global surplus that sent New York prices to a five-year low in January Mumbai: Farmers in India may plant fewer acres of cotton as slumping demand from China cuts exports to the lowest level in six years. The area is set to drop as much as 10% in the 12 months starting 1 October from a record 12.97 million hectares a year earlier,...

-The Indian Express Maharashtra’s horticulturists have had a good run since the 1990s when subsidies under the Employment Guarantee Scheme were offered to small and marginal farmers. Mumbai: There was a time when a farmer’s worries peaked once annually over a failed monsoon or a flood. “Now we get strange weather conditions on one day of every month,” grumbles Kiran Wagh, 35, of Tembhe village in Nashik’s Satana Taluka. “Cloudy, overcast, humid...