-Review of Agrarian Studies, Vol. 11, No. 1, January-June, 2021 This note analyses the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the production and cost of cultivation of crops grown in the monsoon (kharif) season. The note is based on a survey of 164 informants from 26 villages across 13 States of India. The survey, conducted by the Foundation for Agrarian Studies (FAS) between mid-September and mid-October, 2020, was based on telephone...

-The Indian Express With livelihoods affected during the pandemic, the importance of land ownership for access to formal loans as well as government relief programmes became more evident. But the relatively poor availability of clear and updated Land Titles remains a hurdle. For a significant section of the rural poor, land is both an asset and a source of livelihood. Many informal jobs in the urban centres were lost as the economy...

-Press release by International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems dated 30th March, 2021 * New report sounds alarm on control of food tech, farming data, and corporate takeover of UN multilateral agencies. * Civil society  and social movements can fight back, boosting post-pandemic resilience, slashing agriculture’s GHG emissions by 75%, and shifting $4 trillion to sustainable food and farming. The future planned by agribusiness giants could accelerate environmental breakdown and jeopardize...

Quite often it is argued by mainstream economists that a sizeable chunk of the Union Budget every year is wasted because the Government spends that on food and fertiliser subsidies. The burgeoning size of these two subsidies relative to the entire budget as well as the gross domestic product (GDP) is often used to build the argument that economic as well as environmental sustainability of the country is at stake...

-The Hindu A study at the Ludhiana-based Punjab Agricultural University to track the impact of Farmer Producer Organisations (FPO) on the income and employment of farmers in Punjab during 2019-20, has revealed that incomes increased after farmers joined the FPOs and the impact was greater among small, marginal and semi-medium farmers. Chandigarh: The study, titled “Economic Impact of Farmer Producer Organisations on Punjab Peasantry”, asserts that overall, the while permanent labour employment...