Despite high prices of fruits and vegetables, India's area under horticultural crops - mainly fruits, vegetables, spices and flowers - has doubled in around twenty years (between 1991-92 and 2012-13). This has resulted in increase in production of horticultural crops nearly threefold (2.8 times). A new report from the Ministry of Agriculture says that the area under horticultural crops during this period rose from 12.77 million hectares to 23.69 million...

-NDTV Hyderabad: New state Telangana's first ever Budget session begins today with some bleak statistics on the table. Nearly 350 farmers have committed suicide in the five months since the state came into being on June 2 this year. Finance Minister Etala Rajender will present the Budget in the Assembly today. The opposition will arrive in the House ready to attack the Telangana Rashtriya Samiti or TRS government on farmers'...

-The Indian Express For the last 10 years, farmers in India benefited from both increased production and higher price realisations - leading to rising rural incomes and declining poverty rates. That happy story may now be near its end - which could be the precursor to a renewed crisis in agriculture. The main reason is declining global prices for most agri-commodities (see Table 1). Over the last five-six months, corn, wheat and...

-The Times of India LONDON: Majority of the $3 billion spent by the world's leading philanthropic organization - the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on finding solutions around improved Agricultural yield to benefit the world's poorest and hungry people, has been spent in the US, Britain and other rich developed nations. Grain, a research group based in Barcelona said on Tuesday that over 80% of the grants were given to organizations in...

-PTI Chandigarh: The illegal practice of burning paddy stubble has been going on unabated in some parts of Punjab and Haryana despite a government ban on it causing air pollution and health-related issues, agri-experts said. According to Vice Chancellor of the Punjab Agricultural University (PAU) Dr B S Dhillon, stubble burning is causing multiple problems that include affecting the soil health, besides causing environmental pollution. "Hazy weather was witnessed recently which could have...