DownToEarth – Online

Punjab has successfully paid the lion’s share of price due to wheat farmers for their produce via the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) route as the Rabi marketing season nears its end. However, farmers are unsure about what it will mean for their equation with the aarthiyas or commission agents, who have been their financial backbones till now.

The state has transferred Rs 21,010 crore as minimum support price (MSP) to farmers till May 10, 2021, state officials said. This means that it was able to pay 83 per cent of the Rs 25,280 crore owed to wheat farmers within one month, starting from April 10, when wheat procurement began in Punjab.

Punjab and Haryana were the only two states in the country ...

The Free Press Journal – Online

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said the Centre has transferred around Rs 1,35,000 crore so far under the PM-KISAN scheme with the payment of eighth instalment on Friday and is also procuring higher quantity of paddy and wheat at MSP to boost farmers’ income.

Out of the total amount disbursed since the launch of the scheme in February 2019, Modi said around Rs 60,000 crore has been transferred during the COVID-19 pandemic, which is helping farmers in these difficult times.

The Indian Express – Online

The year 2020-21 was exceptional, where the farm sector expanded by 3 per cent, even as the Indian economy as a whole contracted by 6.5 per cent. Agricultural exports also grew 17.5 per cent, despite the value of the country’s overall merchandise shipments falling by 7.2 per cent. There were three drivers behind this unusual dichotomy. The first, of course, was Covid-19 cases being very low in rural areas last year and the government exempting agricultural activities from lockdown restrictions. The second was excellent rains and favourable winter temperatures that helped farmers harvest a bumper crop. The third was a spike in global agri-commodity prices from around October, the benefits of which were reaped by soyabean, mustard, ...

Indian Education Diary – Online

District Magistrate, Ramban, Mussarat Islam has ordered to keep the Zonal Seed Store in Agriculture Complex at Maitra in Ramban open on all days and exempted it from lockdown restrictions.

Even during the J&K wide ongoing Corona curfew, the supply of agriculture inputs from this store remains available on all days from 10 am to 5 pm including the Sundays and Gazetted holidays so that the farmers get uninterrupted and timely seeds and other things.

According to Chief Agriculture Officer, Ramban, Farooq Ahmed Bhat more than 100 Qtl seed has been sold out on subsidized rates to the farmers from this zonal store till date.

CNBC – Online

The second COVID wave that India is currently grappling with is believed to be far more aggressive and infectious than the first wave and this time it has badly affected the rural areas.

In the data analysed by SBI’s Chief Economist Soumya Kanti Ghosh– nearly half of the new cases in India are coming from rural areas. The share of rural districts in new cases increased to 45.5 percent in April and 48.5 percent in May compared to around 37 percent in March.

Another appalling data depicts the lack of healthcare infrastructure in rural India. For instance, there are only 61 beds available for one lakh people in India. That number goes down to just 17 beds ...

Mongabay – Online

When women put in extra hours on farms in peak seasons of sowing, transplanting, and harvesting, it may impact their food preparation time and reduce nutrient intake, a study finds. The research draws attention to the consequences of increased time burdens on farms and the adverse effects on women’s nutrition.

Women-friendly, labour-saving devices on farms and at home can support the growing participation of women in agriculture, but a stronger policy response is needed in India where women constitute over a third of the farm labour force.