-The Economic Times New Delhi: The Agriculture ministry is targeting record foodgrain output of 283.7 million tonnes in the crop year beginning July, with 140.20 million tonnes targeted for the kharif (summer-sown) crop, on expectation of normal rains during the June-September monsoon season. “The weather office forecast of normal monsoon this year is good news for kharif planting and farmers,” Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh said. He said the government was working...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has recently directed the Centre to take a decision on banning 18 pesticides within the next two months. Most of these have been banned in other parts of the world because of their health and ecological impacts. SC has also said that if a decision is taken to ban a particular pesticide, then the ban be implemented within 15 days. Farmers groups, public...

-The Indian Express Curbing stubble burning is about inducing behavioural changes in farmers. Given that crop residue burning has an environmental footprint and poses health hazards, one needs to be cautious while evaluating the Centre’s policy to mitigate the crisis. But there is also an urgent need for such an evaluation. The Centre has allocated Rs 1,050 crore to the states where crop residue burning poses a pollution hazard. The Union Ministry...

-The Indian Express Raising agricultural exports requires the government to unburden policy of consumer bias. A balance should be struck between meeting the needs of food-insecure consumers and income-insecure farmers. The Agriculture Minister, Radha Mohan Singh, recently tweeted about the government’s resolve to increase the value of the country’s agricultural exports to $100 billion by 2022-23. The Dalwai Committee Report on doubling farmers’ incomes also talked of a similar target. It said,...

  The total number of farm suicides in the country has reduced from 12,602 to 11,370 between 2015 and 2016 viz. a fall by 9.8 percent. This has been revealed recently in a reply by the Minister of State in the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Shri Parshottam Rupala in the Lok Sabha. So, one may wonder why there is such a hue and cry about rural distress and agrarian crisis...