-Livemint.com Panel on doubling farm incomes proposes shifting from supply-led to demand-led production system New Delhi: The government should undertake a radical overhaul of the agriculture ecosystem by moving from a supply-push production system to a demand-led one, according to a committee set up by the centre to recommend strategies to double farmer incomes by 2022. The agriculture ministry should also set up an “empowered committee” to operationalize and monitor progress of doubling...

-The Telegraph Their demand for assured remunerative prices, therefore, is perfectly justified There are occasions when one suddenly becomes aware not just of the inadequacy of economic concepts for understanding reality but even of their obfuscating role. One such occasion was the recent kisan march in Delhi. The peasants have been facing distress for long, which has resulted in more than three lakh suicides over the last two-and-a-half decades, in growing indebtedness...

-Firstpost.com Landless labourers in Bihar benefit from the silt that comes down from the Himalayas by growing vegetables, but it is an extremely tough life, with very little profit for the farmer Every year after the festival of Diwali, Pramod Prasad, a landless farmer from the Surajpur village in the Bairia block of West Champaran in Bihar, packs a set of clothes and some utensils to set out for the Gandak River....

-Mongabay.com * Indian government enacted the Forest Rights Act in 2006 to correct the historic injustice done to tribal people and forest dwellers but the implementation of the landmark legislation has been far from satisfactory. * A recent study reveals a large variation in the outcomes of claims submitted under the FRA Act across states. It found that states with more forest cover have higher claim distribution rates, while states with presence...

Just a few days ahead of the Kisan Mukti March in Delhi NCR, the provisional results of the Agriculture Census 2015-16 became available in the public domain. The report, among other things, highlights the long-term problems affecting Indian agriculture including fragmentation of land holdings (particularly the marginal and small ones) and shrinking average size of farm land. The provisional results of the latest Agriculture Census reveal that at the national level...