-Business Standard The central government's price stabilisation fund for potatoes and onions proposes to take on only half of any losses incurred by agencies of state governments in this regard, such as civil supply corporations. The draft guidelines for the Fund, creation of which was announced in the 2014-15 Budget by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, say if any central government agency (such as Nafed or SFAC, the Small Farmers Agri-Business Consortium)...

-Livemint.com The abolition of a procurement-based programme would undermine the very raison d'être of FCI rather than bringing about any restructuring The report of the high-level committee on reorienting the role and restructuring of Food Corp. of India (FCI) is a pointer to the government's thinking on matters of Agriculture and food security. Among the key recommendations of the committee are: winding up of the activities of FCI in traditional procurement states;...

-Business Standard Currently, the Department of Agriculture runs two crop insurance schemes, one of which is weather-based The Centre is devising an insurance product for farmers that will guarantee to make good their loss in income from natural calamities for at least seven years. For crops with minimum support prices (MSPs), the loss in income will be based on the MSP; for others, it will be calculated based on the average market...

-The Hindu Business Line Mehsana (Gujarat): A monocropping culture, driven by healthy returns, threatens to hurt cotton farmers in Mehsana and other districts in the country's largest cotton-producing State, say Agriculture experts working in the region. As the price of cotton slips due to excess supply and China scaling back on purchases, farmers in north Gujarat risk mounting their losses and the likelihood of reduced sowing in May. They had increased cotton...

-The Hindu Consulting firm chosen to conduct EIA on proposed NPCIL 1,000-MW reactors at Mithivirdi lacks accreditation, say sarpanches Ahmedabad: Heads of four villages in Gujarat's Bhavnagar district have written an open letter to United States President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Narendra Modi calling for a public discussion and debate on the proposed 6,000-MW Mithivirdi Nuclear powerplant. Their demand comes in the light of upcoming talks between the two leaders about of...