What stops the government from using good harvests to reduce, if not eliminate, hunger? For ordinary folk, a 3 per cent increase in food grain production over that of last year, combined with strong procurement operations and good buffer stocks of rice and wheat would be a cause for some celebration. It would be seen as an opportunity to tackle the widespread food insecurity that exists in India today. Instead, we...

As children, we were taught to say before our meals, “Annadaata sukhi bhava.” It was a thanksgiving to God for sending the farmer to make food for us and may God bless him. Today, the farmer is helpless. He has no God to go to. Farmer suicides are the tip of the iceberg. The future of agriculture, or lack of it, is staring us in the face. Periodical doles like loan waivers...

-Express News Service Ahmedabad: The state government has decided not to purchase and distribute Monsanto maize seeds to tribal farmers any more following fears expressed by them that these seeds could cause male and female infertility. Instead, these farmers can buy any of the government-certified seeds from open market and then claim subsidy from their respective district agriculture officers. The decision was taken jointly by the state’s agriculture and the tribal ministry on...

The Planning Commission drew flak when it calculated that if an urban person spent 28 per head every day and someone in rural areas spent 22, that was enough to consider them to be above the poverty line. These figures are based on consumption expenditure data collected in the 66th round of NSSO for 2009-10. From these new estimates, using the Tendulkar Committee methodology, the number of poor in 2009-10 was...

Rural India has been denied access to globalisation, penalising farmers and farm labour. For the farmer, the government's policy is best described as Dhritarashtra's embrace. After the Mahabharata war was over, the old king met his nephews, the victorious Pandavas, and embraced them, one by one, in a gesture of forgiving and affection. When, Bhima's turn came, the loving embrace was so tight that it crushed a metal dummy of the second...