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In a free wheeling talk with GOI Monitor, food and trade policy expert Devinder Sharma favours income support for farmers, attacks FDI and indicates that there is a smear campaign going on against the civil society

पर्यावरण मंत्रालय जल्द ही जी. एम. सरसों को मंज़ूरी दे सकता है। मंत्रालय की जेनेटिक इंजीनियरिंग स्वीकृति समिति ने 11 मई 2017 को दिल्ली विश्वविद्यालय द्वारा विकसित जी. एम. सरसों के बीज, डी. एम. एच. 11, के व्यावसायिक उपयोग की सिफारिश की थी। यदि पर्यावरण मंत्रालय इसे स्वकृति देता है तो डी. एम. एच. 11 भारत की पहली जेनेटिकली मॉडिफाइड (जी. एम) खाद्य फसल बन जाएगी। आलोचकों  का सबसे बड़ा आरोप है कि परीक्षणों से संबंधित वैज्ञानिक डेटा को अभी तक गुप्त रखा गया है। जी. एम. सरसों से जुड़े बायोसेफ्टी परिणामों को जनता के बीच लाना चाहिए। सरसों सत्याग्रह के प्रोफेसर राजिंदर चौधरी बताते हैं कि इस निर्णय के खिलाफ लड़ना महत्वपूर्ण क्यों है। 

“We will have 9 billion mouths to feed on this earth by 2050 and there will not be enough food for all of us which is why we need to make technological interventions like GM crop to produce more food.” At a time when food prices are soaring and

Growing crops had never been easy in Kashipur. Farmers practised shifting cultivation, depending on rains to produce whatever little was possible on the rocky slopes. But with onslaught of bauxite mining, large scale felling of forest trees and changing weather patterns, the going has got tougher. The region in Odisha’s Raygada district has always been in news for wrong reasons. More than 50 starvation deaths were reported from this area in 1986-87, which forced the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to pay a visit

Agriculture is the only vocation which relies on dynamics of nature. While friendly earthworms enrich the soil, abundant daily sunlight and a graceful period of showers bless you with a bountiful of food. Humans understood from very early on that to reap

Agriculture in Bihar has languished primarily because of high input costs, especially that of energy due to inadequate grid electricity supply and a high price of diesel. Rural electrification through grid supply is not happening in Bihar due to lack of public investment. Also, the existing groundwater markets are neither increasing irrigation nor achieving equity. So, there is a need for an alternative. The Bihar government launched a scheme for solar irrigation in 2008—Bihar Saur Kranti Sinchai Yojana—as a solution to the lack of adequate electricity for irrigation.

It's an open secret that agriculture in India is stagnating. The latest situation assessment survey done by the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO) paints a bleaker picture. Rural India has 90.2 million agricultural families with an average monthly income of just Rs 6,426. Of this earning, only 60 per cent came from cultivation and rearing of livestock; rest being from daily wages and salary. In fact, agriculture is not the principal source of income for 56 per cent of the marginal families (with less than 0.01 hectare farm).