The Hindu Business Line

Let’s face it, Indian agriculture is a mess. A quagmire of complex challenges and policy neglect laced with vested interests have resulted in daunting demographics. The agriculture sector employs more than half of India’s workforce, consumes around 90 per cent of its freshwater resources and uses nearly half the available land; yet, it generates barely 13 per cent of GDP and around 10 per cent of exports. With more than half of all farmland rain-fed, small-size farms disincentivising mechanisation, nearly half of all farmers lacking access to credit, rapid soil degradation and a staggering ₹92,000 crore-plus of produce lost to spoilage annually, the path forward is long and difficult.

The Hindu Business Line

The coronavirus pandemic is likely to have a transformative impact on the rural economy. Anil Ghanwat, President of Shetkari Sanghatana, says the pandemic has shown farmers the way forward. Agriculture should be strengthened to stop migration to cities and farmers should get remunerative prices for their produce so that they can start agri-processing businesses in villages. According to Ghanwat, Covid-19 has proved to be a blessing in disguise; it could open the doors to economic freedom for farmers

Times Of India

Benefits of Rs 1 lakh crore fund to finance agriculture infrastructure including farm start-ups, announced by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, may not reach the peasants, say activists and farmers. On the other hand, those from the corporate sector have welcomed the step. Reacting to the announcement made a couple of days ago, farm activists said the government was shifting its focus from the core issues. The stress has to be on increasing farmers’ income while the funding facility announced will benefit businesses or the moneyed class in rural areas, they said.

Times Of India

The Indian Railways will provide its surplus land parcels on lease at more than locations to Food Corporation of India (FCI) and other agencies of the food ministry for building storage facilities to see not a single grain is wasted. Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan and railway minister Piyush Goyal shared the common agenda of the two ministries after a review meeting on this issue on Tuesday. The FCI and other agencies under the food ministry have about 74.5 million tonnes of storage capacity, which includes gunnies of foodgrains kept under ‘covered and plinth’ (CAP), which is not a good practice to store grains. There are often reports of how gunnies of foodgrains get wet due to rain in different parts of the country. The ...

Indian Education Dairy

Union Minister of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare, Shri Narendra Singh Tomar today virtually launched the Krishi Megh (National Agricultural Research & Education System -Cloud Infrastructure and Services) along with the KVC ALUNET (Krishi Vishwavidyalaya Chhatr Alumni Network) and Online Accreditation System for Higher Agricultural Educational Institutions (HEI).

Current Affairs Today

The scheme is being replaced as the insurance firms have sought high premium from the government this time. If approved, the state government will have to pay Rs 4,500 crores. This amount is much higher than the average yearly premium of Rs 1,800 crores. The compensation is to be provided if the loss of crop is more than 33% due to excess rain or drought or unseasonal rainfall.