KEY TRENDS   • Oxfam India's 2023 India Supplement report on poverty and inequality in India reveals that the gap between the rich and the poor is widening. Following the pandemic in 2019, the bottom 50 per cent of the population have continued to see their wealth chipped away. By 2020, their income share was estimated to have fallen to only 13 per cent of the national income and have less than 3...

-The Hindu In Punjab, a project to use of paddy straw to produce compressed bio gas is one that is replicable across India, and can transform the rural economy The beginnings of a renewable energy revolution rooted in agriculture are taking shape in India with the first bio-energy plant of a private company in Sangrur district of Punjab having commenced commercial operations on October 18. It will produce Compressed Bio Gas (CBG)...

-The Hindu Further, women need to be included in all facets of livestock development — breeding, veterinary care, extension services, training or access to credit and markets The livestock sector is one of the most rapidly growing components of the rural economy of India, accounting for 5% of national income and 28% of agricultural GDP in 2018-19. In the last six years, the livestock sector grew at 7.9% (at constant prices) while...

-Down to Earth 29% increase in suicides by farm labourers from 2019  The National Crime Record Bureau has released an alarming statistic. An agricultural labourer died by suicide every two hours and a total 1,64,033 people died of suicide in India in 2021. The number amounts to 5,563 suicides by farm labourers, which is a 9 per cent increase from 2020 and a 29 per cent increase from 2019. The highest numbers were recorded...

-NITI Aayog Working Paper, ISBN: 978-81-953811-7-3 Abstract -  The importance of agriculture in an economy usually declines as it climbs the development ladder. Raising agriculture productivity has been known to be an important precursor. Labour productivity in agriculture can either be increased by higher land productivity or higher land availability per farmer and mechanisation. In India, however, the dramatic increase in land productivity through industrial farming has caused severe environmental damage and...