-Outlook The poor are increasingly displaying food preferences for better tasting, flavoured and packaged foods but with low nutritional content. Renewed media hype about counting the number of poor was sparked by the recent release of the Socio-Economic Caste Census. While many analysts found the prevalence of poverty alarmingly high, others debunked the SECC report for its muddled and incoherent view of deprivation. An important contribution of this report, however, is the...
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Agriculture can be highly profitable, but the gains are not easy to sustain -Vivian Fernandes
-FirstPost.com Travelling across the country for the past five months to bring farmers’ voices to urban audiences through a programme called ‘Smart Agriculture’ - to be broadcast every Saturday and Sunday from 25 July on CNN-IBN - we have learnt that agriculture is not a low-profit activity. In fact, it returns more than double the amount of cash invested. Sandipan Suman, a 47 year-old agricultural sciences graduate and maize grower in Bihar’s...
More »How loan sharks pull poor farmers into a debt trap -Naheed Ataulla & Anand J
-The Times of India As crops fail, banks don't deliver and the government falters, Mandya's farmers find themselves at the mercy of unscrupulous moneylenders Chenne Gowda has a Rs. 4 lakh albatross around his neck. The 55-year-old sugarcane farmer from Chikka maralli village in Pan davapura taluk, Mandya district, took the loan from private moneylenders but has no idea how he'll repay. His crop, on two acres, is wilting in the field...
More »A subsidy and some questions
-The Hindu The Central government’s decision this week to extend the interest subvention scheme on bank loans given to land-owning farmers at 7 per cent is essentially a welcome move. This is especially so in a context where there is no real clarity on how the current monsoon will turn out to be, running at a deficit of 7 per cent as it does currently. With an additional subvention component of...
More »Tribal Priestesses Become Guardians of Seeds in Eastern India -Manipadma Jena
-IPS News NIYAMGIRI: As the rhythmic thumping of dancing feet reaches a crescendo, the women offer a song to their forest god for a bountiful harvest. Then, with earthen pots on their heads and their spiritual creatures – a pigeon and a hen – in tow, they proceed in single file on a long march away from their village of Kadaraguma, located on the Niyamgiri mountain range in the Rayagada District of...
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