-Down to Earth Low returns and high risks from alternative crops among reasons past efforts failed, says report The Commission for Agricultural Cost and Prices (CACP) has recommended promotion of crop diversification, favouring oilseed crops amid the global inflation in oilseeds and vegetable oils prices. Global inflation creates a structural risk as vegetable oils account for about half of India’s agricultural import, subsequently raising the country’s agri-import bill, the commission wrote in its...

-ThePrint.in Farmers, farm leaders, economists and policy makers would do well to study this scheme carefully as it shows a possible path to the future. Anew model? Or another fiasco in the making? I kept asking my colleagues and myself as we travelled across the semi-arid bajra growing belt of south Haryana. We stopped at a few mandis — Rewari, Kanina, Ateli, Narnaul, Dadari and Bhiwani — and spoke to farmers, adhatiyas...

-IndiaToday.in Swaraj Abhiyan's Jai Kisan Andolan in a letter to Rajasthan CM Ashok Gehlot sought the procurement of bajra in the state at the MSP of Rs 2,250. Jai Kisan Andolan, a part of the Swaraj Abhiyan outfit, has written to Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot seeking procurement of bajra at the MSP (minimum support price) of Rs 2,250. In the letter, National President of Jai Kisan Andolan Yogendra Yadav and the national...

-Revitalising Rainfed Agriculture Millets are considered as smart crops that are resilient to climate stress and have nutritional advantages. Odisha’s initiative in millets, from farm to plates, has been intervening through four verticals in production (with new agronomic practices), processing, marketing and consumption (includes awareness campaigns and also through inclusion in nutritional programmes). Odisha also started procurement of mandia/ragi (finger millet) since 2018-19. These have important lessons for other states in...

  In its 2014 election manifesto, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), among other things, promised to "take steps to enhance the profitability in agriculture, by ensuring a minimum of 50% profits over the cost of production". In his 2018-19 Union budget speech too, the Finance Minister Shri Arun Jaitley informed the Parliament that the 2014 election manifesto of the BJP had stated that the farmers should get at least 1.5 times the...