-The Hindu Business Line Rising input costs have shrunk profits, making cultivation unviable. Easy access to credit and better MSPs can help The unremitting wave of farmer suicides has resurfaced, now haunting the farming heartlands of Tamil Nadu. Troubled by a severely deficit monsoon which triggered the worst drought in 140 years, over 100 farmers, mostly in the Cauvery delta, have reportedly committed suicide during a period of one month, and the...

As opposed to what has been said officially about the positive impact of demonetisation on rabi sowing, acreage actually declined in 2016-17 as compared to a normal year. Let us see why this has been so. On New Year’s Eve, Prime Minister Narendra Modi while addressing the nation post-demonetisation, among other things, said: “...Friends in the last few weeks, an impression was sought to be created that the agriculture sector...

-The Hindu Nabard report says high dependency on well irrigation coupled with low rainfall is acting as a constraint for achieving high farm growth Hyderabad: Agriculture growth in the last five years has been negative though it has been compensated by contribution from allied agricultural activities in Telangana, said the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard) in a report presented at the credit plan seminar on Friday. Expressing the bank’s perspective...

-The Indian Express Protests by the people against inequality are producing governments that move exactly in the opposite direction We all know that the world is an unequal place, both across and within countries. We also know that across the world, people are expressing their anger and disgust at this inequality. This is increasingly revealed in extreme and often paradoxical political results. In the US, a vote against the establishment has just...

-The Financial Express In Madhya Pradesh’s tribal districts of Dewas and Khargone, the NGO, Samaj Pragati Sahayog, discourages cash transactions for agricultural inputs. The interest rates are usurious and vary according to commodities. For fertiliser, it is dheda—loan for the stuff has to be repaid 1.5 times over by the end of the harvest season. For pesticides it is sawa, or 1.25 times. Even barter can be extortionate. One quintal of...