-Livemint.com For over 12 days now, farmers have been pressing the Centre to repeal a set of agriculture laws passed in September. Centre argues that the agenda is to offer choice to farmers while growers see unregulated private markets as a threat to minimum support prices. Mint explores. * Why are farmers more wary of pvt markets? Over the last five years, low global and domestic commodity prices have taken a toll on...

-The Indian Express Nearly half a century later, millet is making a comeback, thanks to the intervention of the local administration and NGOs. Today, Hanhaga is among 1990 farmers across 163 villages in Keonjhar who have taken up the cultivation of millet. Keonjhar: In the 1960s and ’70s, with the advent of the green revolution, the Indian taste for cereal tilted towards wheat and rice. This was the time when Rumbi Hanhaga (56),...

-Hindustan Times According to the Central Ground Water Board’s 2019 report, state tops the country in over-exploitation of groundwater at 79% Patiala: The proposed reduction in the area to be covered under traditional water-guzzling paddy in Punjab this year due to labour shortage is likely to give some respite to already depleting groundwater table in the state. As per the target set by the state agriculture department, the department is expecting to reduce...

-IndiaToday.in Paddy cultivation has been a worry for water conservationists for long worldwide. And, paddy is not the only water-guzzling crop to have come under the scanner. Beyond the frightening cries of coronavirus outbreak and displaced migrants, a section of farmers in Punjab, Haryana and Telangana, to begin with, are debating this: Can government decide which crop they cultivate in their fields? It began with Punjab. The story began during 1970's as a...

-Hindustan Times Flood-based irrigation in Haryana, Punjab a threat to groundwater which is depleting over 3 feet every year Chandigarh: Breaking the traditional wheat-paddy cycle is the need of the hour to preserve groundwater for the future generations, reveals a research conducted by scientists of the Central Soil Salinity Research Institute (CSSRI), Karnal (Haryana). Asserting that the rice crop alone consumes about 50% of the total irrigation water, the researchers have suggested radical...