-The Indian Express Policy still hasn’t adjusted itself to address the crisis of agricultural produce deflation. India’s agricultural output grew by hardly 2.7 per cent during the last October-December quarter. That isn’t bad, if one takes the corresponding year-on-year increases for the preceding 10 quarters; these have ranged between 4.2 per cent and 7.5 per cent. The cause for concern is that these reasonably good production growth rates in “real” terms...

-The Hindu Business Line India is heading for a record production of rice, the main cereal crop in 2018-19, despite a dismal performance of the monsoon. The Agriculture Ministry’s second advance estimates has pegged the rice production at a record 115.60 million tonnes, about 2.38 per cent higher than the latest or fourth advance estimates for 2017-18. The bumper production is on account of substantial increase in production during the kharif season,...

-The Hindu Business Line ‘Switch to modern production systems has led to decline in use of farmers’ varieties and landraces’ As few as nine crops account for two-thirds of the global food output, and on-farm crop diversity has declined significantly over the decades as farmers have switched from traditional production systems that utilise farmers’ varieties and landraces to modern production systems depending on officially released varieties, shows a report on global biodiversity...

-The Indian Express Chhattisgarh, Bengal and UP emerge frontrunners in extending MSP-plus support to farmers Call it the impact of the ensuing national elections: Governmental procurement of rice, the country’s largest crop by planted area, looks set to surpass 40 million tonnes (mt) for the time ever in the current marketing year that runs from October to September. That would work out to more than a third of the total projected...

-The Hindu Business Line Need to do more R&D in rainfed agriculture and bring in more policy perspective: Ashok Dalwai Even though rainfed agriculture contributes to 60 per cent of the value of agriculture GDP of India, there is a clear-cut bias towards irrigated areas when it comes to public investment in agriculture in the country. This neglect, together with unsuitable programme design, has ensured that potential of rain-fed areas remains unrealised, a...