The Government of India’s initiative to focus on agricultural development in the eastern states, as represented by the meeting that the Union ministers for finance and agriculture attended in Kolkata last week, is welcome if belated. Some may see this as a pre-election gimmick with an eye to elections in Bihar and Bengal. But there is no gainsaying the fact that the region’s agricultural economy needs a productivity boost. Among...

The goal of food for all can be achieved only through greater and integrated attention to production, procurement, preservation and public distribution. The President, in her address to Parliament on June 4, 2009, announced: “My Government proposes to enact a new law — the National Food Security Act — that will provide a statutory basis for a framework which assures food security for all. Every family below the poverty line in...

In India, of the total cultivated area of around 140.30 million hectares only 60.86 million is irrigated and remaining 79.44 million hectares is rain-fed. Rain-fed crops account for 48 percent area under food crops and 68 percent of the area under non-food crops. Irrigated land accounts for nearly 55 percent of food production while rain-fed contributes just about 45 percent. Rain-fed farming is risk prone and is characterized by low...

As a schoolboy I spent many of my summer vacations in the searing heat of Sarangarh. In this small town (kasba describes it best) in Chhattisgarh, bordering Orissa, I saw multiple instances of the practice of “untouchability”. Not perhaps in its most heinous form, but visible and clear to a child’s eyes; for example, someone merely touching the water pot made the water immediately undrinkable, impure. This was the late...

Indian agriculture was mostly organic before the advent of the Green Revolution. However, the widespread adoption of nutrient-responsive and high-yielding varieties greatly promoted the use of inorganic fertilisers, weedicides and insecticides. The compulsion to grow more for food security has led farmers to overlook food quality norms and an indiscriminate use of natural resources. Based on three principal factors viz., mixed cropping, crop rotation and use of organic fertilizers, the National...