-Firstpost.com Chandigarh: With extensive rice farming in Punjab taking an increasing toll on groundwater reserves and soil health, government agencies are now asking farmers to diversify into profitable allied trades including dairy and pig farming and fisheries. Farmers are also being asked to cultivate crops other than paddy. Farmers in different parts of the state have started growing other, more profitable crops alongside rice. In a break with the fertiliser and pesticide-driven...

-The Hindu Income support must be provided to at least the most vulnerable farmers Our farm policy is so bad, the proverb ‘you reap what you sow’ isn’t true any longer. A bumper crop is no different from a drought, for it too depresses farm incomes. Good rains, excessive sowing and the bumper harvest last year produced gluts in the market that sent the prices of many crops, and therefore farm incomes, crashing....

-The Indian Express Only 21 per cent of India’s milk production gets processed through the organised sector and the rest passes through unorganised small players. And that’s where the crisis is most intense. Farmers, who had high expectations from the Narendra Modi government, are a disillusioned lot today. Market prices of several crops have remained well below their minimum support prices (MSPs). Moreover, milk prices have fallen by 20 per cent...

-Business Standard Nabard-Icrier study calls for moving high-water reliant crops like sugarcane in Maharashtra, rice in Punjab to other areas; Gadkari says not possible. With India staring at a looming water crisis, a new study on ‘water productivity mapping of major crops’ has called for putting a price on water used for irrigation to at least recover operating and maintenance costs of structures like canals. It has also called for an end...

-Newsclick.in A fact check reveals the reality behind jaw dropping ‘achievements’ claimed by the BJP govt. in UP in full front-page ads in national dailies. On 13 June, Yogi Adityanath’s BJP govt. of Uttar Pradesh issued costly full page advertisements in national dailies with a slew of claims about how agriculture in the state has achieved unprecedented heights under the one-year old govt. the ads, adorned with smiling faces of Prime Minister...