-PTI Chandigarh: Haryana government today directed authorities to prepare a database of people engaged in farming activities in the state to help it in dispensing compensation and assistance to cultivators. Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar, who presided over a review meeting of agriculture department here, said the benefit of any type of financial assistance should reach the cultivators rather than the land owners. Khattar also said that insurance cover for polyhouses...

-The Telegraph Calcutta: Private companies will be able to buy farm produce directly from farmers in Bengal. But the widely-anticipated whoop of exultation from Indian industry over the amendment in the state's agri-marketing act was somewhat muted because of the lack of clarity on the issue of contract farming and the absence of clear guidelines on whether the state government would provide incentives and help in the acquisition of land for private...

-IPS News SUNDARBANS: November is the cruelest month for landless families in the Indian Sundarbans, the largest single block of tidal mangrove forest in the world lying primarily in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal. There is little agricultural wage-work to be found, and the village moneylender's loan remains unpaid, its interest mounting. The paddy harvest is a month away, pushing rice prices to an annual high. For those like Namita Bera,...

-Down to Earth New climate report warns of longer droughts, extreme weather, and increase in ocean acidification The world's atmosphere is already locked into a 1.5 °C temperature rise because of past and predicted greenhouse gas emissions, posing serious threat to lives and livelihoods around the world, according to a new climate study commissioned by the World Bank Group. The report, Turn Down the Heat: Confronting the New Climate Normal, warns...

-Down to Earth Untimely rains have damaged cotton and soyabean crops all over the state As if prevailing drought-like situation and other natural calamities in 2014 were not enough, the low procurement prices for cotton produced in the state are set to destroy the agricultural economy of the state. The state government has started cotton procurement for the season at the dismal minimum support price (MSP) of Rs 4,050 per quintal. This, allegedly,...