-The Indian Express Maharashtra’s horticulturists have had a good run since the 1990s when subsidies under the Employment Guarantee Scheme were offered to small and marginal farmers. Mumbai: There was a time when a farmer’s worries peaked once annually over a failed monsoon or a flood. “Now we get strange weather conditions on one day of every month,” grumbles Kiran Wagh, 35, of Tembhe village in Nashik’s Satana Taluka. “Cloudy, overcast, humid...

-Al Jazeera Falling into a debt-trap and besieged by bad weather, thousands of farmers are taking their own lives each year. Umbrale, India -  After days of hushed chanting that "the sky betrayed" him, Datatery Popat Ghadwaje, 42, committed suicide by ingesting insecticides at his grape orchard. Crushed under a $41,000 debt and a series of bank repayment notices, Ghadwaje of Umbrale village in the western state of Maharashtra finally lost hope...

-IPS News NAYAGARH (IPS): Kama Pradhan, a 35-year-old tribal woman, her eyes intent on the glowing screen of a hand-held GPS device, moves quickly between the trees. Ahead of her, a group of men hastens to clear away the brambles from stone pillars that stand at scattered intervals throughout this dense forest in the Nayagarh district of India’s eastern Odisha state. The heavy stone markers, laid down by the British 150 years...

-IndiaSpend.com   Cultivated land on India’s farms has declined 15% over 25 years, according to government data analysed by IndiaSpend, reducing foodgrain production and portending new pressures as more land is set to be acquired for industries. While net sown area includes Orchards and crops, cultivated area covers only crops. Land sown with crops declined from nearly 87% in 1987-88 to 72% in 2011-12. Please click here to read more. ...

-The Hindu Business Line   Farmers across Uttar Pradesh and Punjab lament weather woes and lack of social security Consumers may be bracing themselves for rising prices of vegetables and fruits, but the unseasonal heavy showers and hailstorms through the first half of March have already dealt a significant blow to farmers across much of the northern, central and western belts. Agriculture Ministry estimates earlier this week showed that Rabi crops in about 181...