-The Hindu Business Line The main grouse that States have with PMFBY is that while premiums are distributed evenly across participants, claims are cornered by a few Six years after its launch and post multiple overhauls, Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY), India’s flagship scheme for crop insurance, has largely failed to deliver on its objectives. An expert committee steered by Ashok Dalwai recently submitted a report showing that, between 2016 and...

-TheWire.in * Debal Deb began conserving indigenous varieties of rice in the 1990s after realizing that they were losing cultivation ground to other varieties preferred by the Green Revolution. * In an extended interview with The Wire Science, he explained what makes a crop resilient, why farmers should be considered scientists, and the perils of technological solutionism. * Deb also spoke at length about the problems with the Green Revolution and its troubled...

-TheWire.in A recent report on farmer suicides in Punjab reveals the circumstances which lead farmers and farm labourers to take their own lives, debunks popular myths regarding the same, and points to policy measures needed to tackle the problem. Suicides are a sign of a deep crisis in a society. And in Punjab’s so-called ‘agriculturally developed society’, suicides of farmers and farm labourers have been taking place unabated for the last two...

-Down to Earth Farmers are being pushed to suicide amid market shortage   Chilli farmers in Telangana’s Subakkapalli village, Bhopalapalli district, are living their worst nightmare. A new pest, black thrips (Thrips parvispinus), has destroyed over 40 hectares (ha) of standing crop in a matter of months. In Sidduri Ravindra Rao’s farm, the initial signs of the attack were reported in the first week of December last year. He increased the frequency of...

-Down to Earth There has been no announcement on compensation to farmers who have lost their crops Twenty farmers have died by suicide since January 2022 in Telangana’s Mahabubad district after insect infestation destroyed their chilli crop, a ground survey by the Human Rights Forum (HRF) and Rythu Swarajya Vedika (RSV) has claimed. Five suicides have also been reported in Khammam district. Thrips parvispinus, an invasive pest from Indonesia, has spread rapidly, especially...