-Hindustan Times Productivity is also expected to drop further to about 35% owing to intermittent rains. Mumbai: Prolonged dry spells and deviation in rainfall for about six weeks in July and August has led to a drop in agricultural production and productivity when compared to the state’s five-year average and the bumper crop yielded last year. The drop, which ranges between 15% and 28%, in the production of pulses, cereals and oilseeds...

-Livemint.com Average profit margin of farmers on all pulse varieties except gram (chickpeas) fell by 30% in 2016-17 year-on-year due to a record harvest and adverse government policies, said the CRISIL report New Delhi: The profitability of poor farmers in India who are dependent on rain-fed irrigation and grow pulses fell sharply during 2016-17 due to a record harvest and adverse government policies, said a report released on Monday. Average profit margin of...

-Hindustan Times Of the affected states are also those announced farm Loan Waivers just months ago to bail out beleaguered farming community. With the southwest monsoon season about to end in less than three weeks’ time, the government’s drought warning system predicts there could be a drought in 225 districts across “17 agriculturally important states of India,” putting further strain on distressed agriculture sector. According to the government’s National Agriculture and Drought...

-Livemint.com 3.9 million of these 4.5 million Maharashtra farmers applied for farm Loan Waivers online Mumbai: Even as opposition parties in Maharashtra continue to criticize the online procedure to identify the beneficiaries of farm Loan Waiver, farmers themselves have responded in large numbers to the initiative. By 30 August, more than 4.5 million farmers in the state had enrolled for the scheme and nearly 3.9 million of them had submitted their online...

-Livemint.com Rainfall in the entire country in August has seen a deficit of 23% so far, according to IMD data New Delhi: A patch of red signifying deficit rains, cutting across the length of India from Haryana in the north to Kerala in the south, is threatening to worsen farm distress, shows rainfall data from the India Meteorological Department (IMD). The June to September south-west monsoon which irrigates over half of India’s crop...