-The Hindu Business Line They account for a third of the agricultural workforce, but don’t get the benefits and opportunities the menfolk enjoy India celebrated its first Women Farmer’s Day on October 15, but the word farmer or kisan is still seen as being synonymous with a male farm worker. This perception is built on two assumptions — first, farming is a masculine profession; and, second, when women are involved in farm...

-Livemint.com Loan waivers and electricity subsidies are band-aids at best; a deeper transformation is needed The past few days have neatly summed up the scale and nature of the challenges facing India’s agriculture sector. First, the provisional agriculture census 2015-16 showed that landholdings have continued their decades-long trend of fragmentation, leading to a further rise in the proportion of small and marginal farmers. Then, 30,000 farmers, who had started their march from...

-The Indian Express Getting the right remuneration is the most critical issue facing farmers. Government must provide policy, institutional framework for procurement. The farmer and his income is an important theme of discussion these days. A lot is being written on ways to increasing, and doubling, the farmers’ incomes by the year 2022. Viewed arithmetically, the income of a farmer is a function of three things — the cost of cultivation, production...

-The Hindu Business Line 2.45 million has been lost to urban sprawl between 2010-11 and 2015-16, says survey New Delhi: In an indication of further deepening of a crisis in the agricutural sector, the average size of operational agricultural holdings in the country has declined to 1.08 hectares (ha) in 2015-16 as compared to 1.15 ha in 2010-11, according to the freshly- released provisional agriculture census data released on Monday. Expectedly, the number...

-Livemint.com Both fertilizer and agrochemical companies are highly dependent on imports for raw materials. With rupee depreciation exacerbating the rise in prices of raw materials, the profitability of the companies is expected to take a hit this year The forecast of a record foodgrain production in the ongoing kharif season has brought no cheer to agricultural inputs stocks. Shares of Rallis India Ltd lost 3% last week. Dhanuka Agritech Ltd slumped 12%....