-Livemint.com Pulses use less water per unit crop and also address hidden hunger The severe drought across India should hopefully help focus attention on the overuse of water in agriculture. A data analysis by Roshan Kishore in this newspaper last week showed that the average water footprint for five major crops—rice, wheat, maize, sugarcane and cotton—is far higher than global averages. At the root of the problem is a policy framework that...

-PTI Radha Mohan Singh total number of agricultural workers in the country increased from 234.1 million in 2001 to 263 million in 2011. Therefore, it cannot be categorically stated that farmers are leaving the profession of agriculture. Farmers are earning less than workers in industrial and services sectors because of lower farm output, Parliament was informed Tuesday. "Income from the farm sector is less as compared to income from industrial and services sector,"...

-NDTV Solapur: As thousands of villages in the country come under the grip of drought, the role of the government's flagship work guarantee scheme, NREGA or National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, becomes crucial. In January, the Union government told the Supreme Court  that for all drought-hit states, NREGA's 100-day limit has been increased to 150 days. But travelling this week through Marathwada in Maharashtra, the country's drought central, in village after village we...

-The Hindu Business Line The only way this story of the Indian farmer will change is if policymakers ensure better remuneration for them The peasant (in India) is born in debt, lives in debt, dies in debt and bequeaths debt. This is what Sir Malcolm Darling, a famous British researcher and writer, wrote in 1925 after studying the condition of undivided Punjab’s peasants. Had Darling been alive today he would have rephrased his...

-Livemint.com Panel aims to find ways to diversify risks in farming, examine how integrated farming can boost incomes New Delhi: The central government has set up a panel to suggest ways to double farm incomes by 2022, as promised by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The task of the inter-ministerial committee will prepare a blueprint to transition farm policies from being production oriented to based on incomes or value addition. The committee will look...