-TheWire.in While most farmers and farm land are from rainfed areas, the government focuses only on irrigated areas. How long will this unfair treatment continue? After an intense period of farmers’ agitation, the Maharashtra government has announced a loan waiver. Madhya Pradesh continues to simmer. Tamil Nadu farmers have expressed their distress in no uncertain terms. The loan waiver will probably make the farmers feel relieved for now, but the pivotal question...

Much to our surprise, a careful relook at the newly released estimates on farm production from the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare would reveal that the foodgrain production during the rabi season is likely to fall by almost 1 million tonne between 2013-14 and 2016-17. Please see chart-1. Amidst the celebration of a bumper harvest in the ongoing crop year, it needs to be explained why the rabi foodgrain output...

-The Economic Times blog In every Union Budget presentation, agriculture is given a place of prominence. This is not surprising, given that 50% of India’s population is dependent on agriculture. Budget 2017 was no different. Both the Economic Survey and the Budget speech stressed heavily on improving agricultural infrastructure and augmenting farmer incomes. The key drivers expected to set this off are areas such as investment in irrigation infrastructure, development of mandis...

-The Indian Express It’s not as if the Centre cannot initiate reforms in agriculture. In fact, in at least three major areas, the onus for leadership and action lies with the Centre. For over a year, there have been news reports of Niti Aayog, the erstwhile Planning Commission’s new avatar, working on a wide-ranging reform package for India’s farm sector. In recent months, teasers have appeared hinting at the Centre’s plans of...

Expanding irrigation network in the country is considered as essential to raise agricultural production in the face of increased frequency of droughts. However, a newly released report from the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare shows that there has actually been a fall in the growth rate of net irrigated area during the recent two decades. The report entitled State of Indian Agriculture 2015-16 reveals that the growth rate in...