-The Tribune Contract farming is a much-needed vehicle to bring new crops, technologies, and markets to farmers. However, the new model Act 2018 opens up agricultural markets to contracting agencies without adequate safeguards for farmers. The first attempt at reforms in agricultural markets was made by the union government with the design of a model Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) Act in 2003 which provided for new market channels for farmers and...

-The Hindu An estimated 10 million people in nine districts of West Bengal drink arsenic-laden groundwater. Priyanka Pulla finds that despite alarms having been sounded over decades, the State government has moved at a glacial pace to tackle the crisis, while people struggle to cope with the symptoms On a Thursday morning at the government primary school in Madhusudankati, a village in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas district, a gaggle of five-year-olds...

-The Hindu Business Line A study of Farmer Producer Organisations in Bihar show mixed results — some successes but several challenges too The government has this lofty goal of doubling farmers’ income by 2022. Among the different instruments to achieve this goal, promotion of new and scaling up of existing Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) have been given focus. Given the extremely small landholdings, FPOs, through collectivisation, which leads to economies of scale, are...

-ThePrint.in It is nobody’s case that problems of agriculture can be fixed by soil health cards, loan waivers, crop insurance or e-NAM. The five-day long march of 30,000 farmers from Nashik to Mumbai has touched a chord with urban India. Even though some said they were implementing the agenda of ‘urban Naxalites’, the pictures of poor tribals and farmers, men and women, old and young, walking in heat, many without shoes, will...

-The Indian Express The government should not succumb to pressures for removal of trait fee on a technology that has made India the world’s No. 1 cotton producer. During the last cotton season, there were reports of the pink bollworm (PBW) not being effectively controlled, especially in some 700 villages of Maharashtra where the infestation of this insect pest was stated to be high. However, at a review meeting conducted by the...