-The Hindu Mysuru: Members of State Federation of Farmers and Sugarcane Cultivators Association staged a demonstration in the city on Sunday demanding India’s exit from the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The demonstration was held heeding the strike call issued by Rashtriya Kisan Mahasangha and is part of a nation-wide agitation being conducted by farmers in support of their demands. Kurubur Shanthakumar, president of Sugarcane Cultivators Association, who addressed the farmers said that ever...

-Financial Express Traders say that only a small quantity of wheat crop is held by farmers currently, as major chunks have been purchased by traders by paying higher than MSP prices in anticipation of a surge in exports. Mandi prices of wheat were ruling just above the minimum support price (MSP) on Wednesday in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Delhi. Trade sources told FE that in Punjab and Haryana, arrivals of wheat in...

-TheWire.in * The proposed Biological Diversity (Amendment) Bill 2021 encourages a conducive environment for investments and to simplify the patent application process. * Farmers in India have historically been against any kind of IP rights – whether patents or plant variety protection over seed and planting materials. * In a confused mix of laws, the government also grants IP rights to BMCs for farmers’ varieties – formed under the Biological Diversity Act –...

-The Tribune While many of the big defaulters have escaped abroad, why is it invariably a farmer (or a small borrower) who is left to face ill-treatment and injustice in the loan recovery process? While the big defaulters are treated with kid gloves, farmers are always treated with a different yardstick, as if they are children of a lesser god. WHILE the Punjab State Cooperative Agricultural Development Bank (PADB) has issued arrest...

-Mongabay.com - Perennial waterlogging in agricultural fields of Charkhi Dadri is making them uncultivable. Farmers are adopting alternate occupations or taking land on lease in other villages to continue farming. - While groundwater scarcity is a problem in many parts of North India, some 319 villages in Haryana have the opposite issue of waterlogging because of high groundwater levels. - Government interventions, saline water draining attempts and subsidies for crop diversification, along with...