-Newsclick.in “Our population today is around 136 crore. Where will you get food grains for them through zero budget farming? This is sheer madness.” There is an inherent seductive charm to the term zero budget natural farming, for it makes the arduous occupation of agriculture appear beguilingly simple, an economic proposition without any risk or even requirement of capital. Coined by the Vidarbha-based farmer, Subhash Palekar, who was bestowed with the Padma...

-Business Standard Till the time you don’t give water to a farmer’s fields, you can’t save him from suicide. Intervening in a debate in the state Assembly on July 21, 2015, the Chief Minister of Maharashtra remarked that the state has 40 per cent of the country’s large dams, “but 82 per cent area of the state is rainfed. Till the time you don’t give water to a farmer’s fields, you can’t...

-The New Indian Express Narendra Modi’s overwhelming win has pushed the burning issues around agrarian distress on the back burner; but once the victory euphoria dies down, these will be pushing for recognition again. A crash in prices of farm produce and the demand for remunerative prices, and waiver of back-breaking loans are some of the issues staring the new government in the face. The interim budget recognised the distress by...

-TheNewsMinute.com Set up in 2017, Kisan Mitra provides counselling to distressed farmers and acts as a bridge between them and the government. “It was during the 2018 floods that we got a call from a farmer in Adilabad. The caller didn’t need any help for himself but said that his neighbour has been sitting in a corner of his field since morning with a bottle of pesticide in his hand. The...

-Newsclick.in Northern Maharashtra, which produces almost 60% of India’s total onion crop, has seen a steady fall in onion rates creating a crisis for the farmers in the drought affected state. Two months back, NewsClick reported the suicide of a 22-year-old boy whose onion crop had failed. This Akshay Tambe was from Bhoom tehsil of Marathwada, an area which is actually not known for onion cultivation. But the heart wrenching stories of...