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Ganeshwadi is the last village of Shirol taluka in Kolhapur district on the border between Maharashtra and Karnataka. Many farmers from Ganeshwadi and other villages in Shirol straddle between the two states with a home in Maharashtra and agricultural land in Karnataka.

When monsoons hit the western Indian state, floods regularly follow in Shirol. The taluka has 55 villages, among which 43 are 90% flood-affected, while seven villages face the maximum impact, becoming islands during this time of the year.

Financial Express

Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu on Saturday called upon Indian startups to help farmers equip with the required technology to boost agri-entrepreneurship in the country. Inaugurating an event on agri-technology and innovation at Prof. Jayashankar Telangana State Agriculture University in Hyderabad, Naidu said that “emerging start-ups can bridge the gaps in facilitating outreach of technology to the farmers and create the right ecosystem for agri-entrepreneurship in India.” He also urged scientists and researchers to develop solutions for challenges faced by Indian farmers.

Indian Express

Mango growers from Konkan have urged the state government to pay them compensation for the crop loss suffered by them due to unseasonal rain last year. Chandrakant Mokal, president of the Maharashtra State Mango Growers Association, claimed this year the state will see just 20 per cent of its normal production.

Unseasonal rain in October and November saw mango orchards of Konkan — home of the fabled Alphonso mangoes — sustaining heavy losses. This has affected the flowering of the orchards and, instead of March, the first fruit of the season will hit the markets only in May. “Flowering in most orchards started late and farmers will have to spend extra to enable the fruit to set ...

Indian Express

Minister for Water Resources, Jayant Patil, cited ‘substandard’ work carried out under Jalyukta Shivar, the flagship water conservation project launched by previous Devendra Fadnavis-led BJP government. Five years hence, the project has been officially scrapped by the Maha Vikas Aghadi government.

What does this mean for the efforts of water conservation and will the state tackle its water woes?

The Hindu BusinessLine

The pesticide – Dichlorvos, that is used to tackle the menace caused by locusts effectively, will be banned from December 31.

This is despite the reports of the locusts destroying crops, that were growing on nearly 1.68 lakh hectares of agricultural land, over the last one year in the country.

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On a cold February morning in this south Kashmir town, saffron farmer Manzoor Ahmad Bhat, 38, was setting out on a 30-km drive to the capital city of Srinagar. Bhat and two other farmers were meeting officials of the Agriculture Department to press for a Geographical Indication, or GI, tag for Kashmiri saffron.

Hindustan Times

Indian farmers have been overspraying subsidised chemical fertilisers on crops for decades, imperiling public health. The national soil health programme, which completed five years this month, has potentially weaned off nearly 200 million farmers from the practice, leading to more judicious use, higher productivity and better incomes, two public-sector studies have found.