-Livemint.com India’s farm crisis requires a well-crafted strategy, not knee-jerk reactions or quick-fix solutions As Delhi chokes on smog, the spotlight has once again been put on the farmers of the neighbouring states of Punjab and Haryana and their practice of burning farm stubble during the post-harvest season. Faced with the prospect of employing scarce and costly labour to dispose the stubble, or purchasing an expensive machine to do the same job, or...

-The Indian Express Agriculture’s contribution to poverty reduction is five times more than that of metropolitan centres Speaking at the third BRICS Urbanisation Forum in Visakhapatnam on September 14, Deputy Chairman of the Niti Ayog, Arvind Panagariya, announced that “Without cities we can’t grow rapidly”. He added, “urbanisation plays an important role in poverty alleviation”. Both claims are exaggerated and somewhat misleading. A recent report prepared for the UN points out that, over...

-The Tribune Kaithal: The Agriculture Department with Krishi Vigyan Kendra organised a kisan mela here yesterday to generate awareness against stubble burning and propagate scientific options to manage crop residue. Dr Gurbachan Singh, Chairman, Agriculture Scientists Recruitment Board (ASRB), informed farmers about the adverse impact of stubble burning on the environment and human health. He advised the farmers to adopt resource conservation technologies and use crop residue for soil health improvement, reducing...

-Down to Earth Punjab produces about 19-20 million tonnes of paddy straw and about 85-90 per cent of this paddy straw is burnt in the field Burning of agricultural biomass residue, or Crop Residue Burning (CRB) has been identified as a major health hazard. In addition to causing exposure to extremely high levels of Particulate Matter concentration to people in the immediate vicinity, it is also a major regional source of...

-Livemint.com The transformation of the Indian countryside has been slow and messy One of the celebrated success stories of India’s growth experience over the past decade was the rapid transformation of the countryside, with a massive shift in the rural labour market away from farm jobs. Two labour economists have now challenged the empirical foundations of that success story, raising deep questions on the nature and scale of that transformation. Their research also...