Media Monitor
Agriculture Industry
Incessant rain brings both smiles, worries for farmersedit
Incessant rain lashed district on Sunday afternoon bringing both smiles and worries to farmers as rain during this season benefits wheat crop, it destroys standing mustard, pea and lentil crops. Even as the sky remained covered by clouds for past few days, it started lashing Bijnor around 1 pm on Saturday, and by 6 pm, 10 mm rainfall was recorded.
Farmers’ list of demands a test for candidatesedit
Assembly election candidates are having a tough time influencing farmers. There are 36 lakh farmers across Uttar Pradesh and their leaders and representatives have made a list of their demands and are putting party candidates to the test by asking them which demands were fulfilled when their party was in power and which they propose to fulfill now. The list of demands includes cheap electricity, discount on fertilisers and seeds, construction of research centres, payment of pending dues and many others.
Budget
A well-intentioned Budgetedit
There is a fairly large list of programmes and schemes indicated in the Budget speech, particularly in the areas of agriculture and rural development. Many of them are extensions of existing ones. In fact, in the case of some programmes, the increase over the RE of 2016-17 is not large. For example, in the case of the MGNREGS, the allocation for 2017-18 is ₹48,000 crore as against the RE for 2016-17 of ₹47,499 crore. But the BE for 2016-17 for this was ₹38,500 crore. Nevertheless, this expenditure adds up to a substantial amount. But the impact depends on how well the allocations are spent. The pick-up in rural demand rests heavily on this.
Budget 2017: Focus on strengthening farm sectoredit
The Budget has focused on strengthening the agricultural sector and rural development. The total allocation for rural, agricultural and allied sectors for 2017-18 is ₹1,87,223 crore, 24 per cent higher than last year. India has suffered from inefficient price discovery and price realisation for farmers because of the fragmented nature of the markets. With an integrated spot and derivatives market, these prevailing gaps will be plugged.
Technology in Agriculture
Harvesters become useless, Tamil Nadu ryots turn helpless with no farm handsedit
A week has passed since rains stopped, but the sorrow continues for farmers as they are unable to harvest paddy because of labour shortage. Harvesters are of no help as the crops are inclined and not suited for machine harvest.