-IndiaWaterPortal.org Calculating water availability and crop budgeting can prevent over-extraction of groundwater and mounting farm debt. At 42 years, Bhagwat Ghagare seems young. But he is old enough to have seen his village prosper and decline many times. Farming had traditionally been small and distress migration rampant at Kumbharwadi in Ahmednagar district of Maharashtra. Between 1998 and 2002, a non-profit organisation, Watershed Organisation Trust (WOTR), initiated a work related to rainwater harvesting...

-The Hindu Business Line Pune: On Sunday after Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the ambitious Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-Kisan) scheme, transferring the first instalment of Rs.2,000 each to over one crore beneficiaries, Ashok Lahamage received an SMS from State Bank of India’s Sinnar (Nashik) branch, stating that Rs.2,000 had been deposited into his account. But, to his surprise, he received another text message from the bank a few hours...

-The Hindu Business Line How 140 farmers in Maharashtra’s Jalna district have been left high and dry Farmers of Jalna district in Aurangabad Division of Maharashra, who planted pomegranate, mango and sweet lime in the 2017 kharif season and lost their crop because of a drought are in a state of despair. Despite coughing up premiums for the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY), they have not received a penny from the...

-The Indian Express Farmers protested violently over the weekend in support of their demand for a one-time payment of the fair and remunerative price. Ballooning cane dues could become a major issue as LS polls near. Pune: Sugarcane farmers in western Maharashtra Monday called off their violent four-day-old agitation, giving sugar mill owners and the government two weeks to find the money to pay them their full dues. The agreement was...

-News18.com Acclaimed journalist and Founder-Editor of the People’s Archive of Rural India, P Sainath attributes the existential crisis confronting India’s agrarian society to macro-economic policies set in motion 25 years ago. Talking to Anuradha SenGupta, Sainath makes a case for state intervention in agriculture and says the Modi government, with its shifting positions and policies like demonetisation has only aggravated the assault on agrarian livelihoods. Dismissing the buzz about imminent new initiatives...