Agriculture

Will the farmer benefit from cash support?

A first after many years, farmers are at the centre of political attention. Ahead of the general elections, there is a rush of cash support schemes to woo them. This may bring some solace to farmers, but will the schemes have a lasting impact?

Agriculture

Interim Budget 2019: The full coverage

Here is a look at what all was promised by Union Minister Piyush Goyal and if it stands in the real world

Agriculture

Before Feb 1, brush up your knowledge of all Budgets since Independence

An analysis of all budgets since 1947, their relevance, exclusion of children’s rights and what the last Budget lacked: all of which is here

Agriculture

India's cow crisis: The full coverage

All that you need to know about what's wrong with India's cow laws and the problems they are leading to in a five-part series

Agriculture

The real weed

The WHO says it causes cancer and studies link it to many diseases. Countries have been struggling to ban or restrict its use. But a new movement to ban this chemical is gaining ground

Agriculture

Palm oil consumption increased 230% in almost 2 decades, yet India imports most of it

India has not been able to achieve self-sufficiency in palm oil production despite 40 years of efforts. Down To Earth travelled to some of the oil growing states to understand why

Agriculture

Why MSP will not provide even minimum support to farmers

With a projected 5-25% rise in input prices of fuel, agricultural rentals and agrochemicals, the new MSPs for kharif crops will not lead to any gains

Agriculture

How to make Africa food self-sufficient, again?

Africa is the only continent that imports more food than it produces. With ground reports from 10 African countries, Down To Earth's editorial team speaks to experts and policymakers on how Africa can achieve food security

Agriculture

Unpredictable weather, unreliable insurance, unbelievable profit to companies

Farmers across India suffered heavy losses when the monsoon turned out to be a non-starter. The Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana, the government's flagship crop insurance scheme, was expected to help them tide over the crisis. It turned out to be a non-starter too

Agriculture

Why farmers now dread a normal monsoon

No major agrarian reform has happened in the 50 years since the Green Revolution. A normal monsoon cannot be assumed as the only incentive for farmers to sustain productivity. It's time India offered its food producers a new deal

Agriculture

India's burning issue of crop burning takes a new turn

The pattern of burning crop residue in India is changing. The practice is no longer limited to the post-monsoon crop of rice or the northern states of Punjab and Haryana

Agriculture

Meat Matters

Why slaughterhouses have to be "illegal" to be sustainable and why farmers have to give up their cattle for survival

Agriculture

Champaran Satyagraha continues

A century ago, Gandhi tested the idea of satyagraha to fight for indigo farmers. While the crop is seeing a revival in the south, Champaran is in the throes of another peasant struggle

Agriculture

Digitising agriculture in face of climate change

Extreme weather and changing geography threatened food security and livelihood in Africa and Asia this year. Digitising agriculture has become a necessity to battle climate change and protect the vulnerable lot

Agriculture

Seeds of decline

Frequent pest attacks, rising seed costs and declining returns are forcing farmers to abandon India's first genetically modified (GM) crop, Bt cotton. The trend is catching up worldwide with GM crops. Darshan Desai accesses an exclusive government evaluation and reports from Gujarat; Jitendra explores the fate of farmers in northern India's cotton belt; Mukund Kulkarni tracks rising debt …

Agriculture

Transformation in agriculture needed to cope with climate change

A FAO report points out that a “business as usual” scenario can increase the number of poor by between 35 and 122 million by 2030 relative to a future without climate change

Agriculture

World Food Day: our agriculture must keep pace with changing climate

To feed the world, agriculture, along with forestry, fisheries and livestock, needs to become more resilient and productive

Agriculture

Sweet ’n’ sour

Moringa and tamarind are popularly known as the trees of life for Indians. Moringa is in fashion as the world eyes India to feed its frenzy for the new superfood. Hardy tamarind shares the same versatility but struggles to find its way out of the wood. Karnika Bahuguna and Shreeshan Venkatesh travel to the hinterland of eastern and southern India to make sense of this dichotomy

Agriculture

A fishy business

The fish you eat possibly contains a cocktail of antibiotics, fed to it for reasons other than disease treatment, shows an investigation by Rajeshwari Sinha and Amit Khurana. They visit 22 fish farms in West Bengal to find out how rampant is the use of antibiotics and why it goes unnoticed

Agriculture

How cow became the mother of demigods

The current political discourse on cow protection disregards the history of beef eating in India

Agriculture

In-depth coverage: Drought, but why

Drought now affects people across classes. India needs a new strategy for disaster management