The Times of India – Online

Agriculture is one sector that takes all the four factors of production – land, labour, capital, and organisation/management – in full measure, and consumes the scarcest resource water additionally. Several limitations surround the future of agriculture. Land is limited and there are several claims from dwellers to industrialists. So is water and capital. Management depends on the absorption of the latest technologies. India has only 4 percent of world’s wate resources. Its present population of around 1.39bn is likely to escalate to 1.69bn according to population experts. Improving (a) water resources’ optimization, (b) productivity of the small holdings that constitute 50 percent of the arable land, (c) technologies unique to the production systems ...

Hindustan Times – Online

Under the leadership of Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi, the Union ministry of agriculture and farmers welfare has rolled out innovative schemes to reform the farm sector and empower farmers. Thanks to these schemes and programmes, the livelihood standards of farmers are improving, central grants are reaching their bank accounts in a transparent manner, and farming is emerging as a viable business proposition. In the last eight years, the budget allocation for the ministry has increased by almost six times. This fiscal’s allocation, ₹1.32 lakh crore, is a reflection of the Union government’s focus on the welfare of farmers. The record production of food grains and horticultural crops also proves that the increased allocation is ...

DownToEarth – Online

India’s public expenditure on agriculture as a fraction of total expense fell to 9.5 per in 2019-20 from 11 per cent in 2010-11 amid a a sharp fall in the Union government’s expenditure on agriculture as a share of gross value added (GVA) by the sector, claimed a study by Foundation of Agrarian Studies (FAS). The share of agricultural in India’s total GVA fell in this period to 17.8 per cent from 18.2 per cent, the study found. Public expenditure on agriculture thus has declined faster than agriculture’s relative importance in the economy. The burden of public expenditure on agriculture has been transferred from the Centre to the states even as a several sections have raised ...