Income support is healthy tonic for smallholder farmers

Basic income support will bring succor to farmers in times of stress (Photo by Nithi Anand)

Instead of farm loan waivers and minimum support price for crops that distort resource allocation and markets, basic income support to small and marginal farmers is a far better state mechanism

How useful will farmer support be?

Small farmers to benefit from government scheme (Photo by Bishnu Sarangi)

It will not be easy to optimally deploy the basic income support announced by the government for small and marginal farmers. The scheme has large exclusions in the landless and the women as well

Heavy snow hurts Kashmir’s apple farmers

Apple growers suffering financial losses due to untimely snowfall in 2018, had suffered damages during the 2014 flooding as well (Photo by Athar Parvaiz)

Extreme weather events such as untimely snowfall and heavy floods have harmed the apple crop in Kashmir; one way to reduce losses is to properly implement a crop insurance scheme

Village health workers toil tirelessly despite low wages

One of the many tasks of ASHA worker Chandrakala Gangurde is to monitor young mothers at the primary health centers (Photo by PARI)

Village health workers have emerged as the mainstay of the primary healthcare system in rural Maharashtra. Yet, they are paid tiny amounts, get no benefits and struggle with supply shortages

Participation key to empowering Juang tribes

With access to forests restricted and traditional livelihoods unable to sustain them, the Juangs in Khontomara village lag in development (Photo by Jayapadma RV)

Treating Juang tribes of Odisha as participants in the development process rather than as recipients of development largesse will help bringing them into the national mainstream

Food forests offer better profits to farmers

A food forest in the development phase, where farmer Thangavelu has been able to harvest a better yield from ground crops (Photo by Balasubramaniam N.)

Mimicking forests, progressive farmers across India have started transforming farms into a layered cropping system that is climate resilient and more productive

Weaving a future, meter by meter

Many Bodo women like Sama Brahma are keeping the traditional skill of handloom weaving alive (Photo by Anne Pinto-Rodrigues)

In the villages of Bodoland in Assam, where every Bodo home has a loom, Sama Brahma earns a modest income from weaving, and is trying to pass on this waning traditional skill to her daughters

Can data-driven social enterprises boost farmer incomes?

Reliable data at the farm level would help stakeholders across farm supply chain and increase the value share of farmers (Photo by Pixabay)

A collaboration between technological and value chain enterprises working directly with farmers could help make the farm to fork value chain more organized and efficient, thus increasing returns to cultivators

Monkeys damage cashew plantations, cause fever outbreak

Monkeys transmit KFD virus when they descend on cashew farms. Cashew farmer Vasu Appa Gawas took six months to recuperate from monkey fever (Photo by Tarun Kanti Bose)

Fear of monkeys has gripped cashew farmers and migrant workers in Goa, as the simians have turned cashew plantations into a feeding ground, destroying the crop and transmitting a virus through ticks

Mayurbhanj villagers forced to ford river to reach schools, hospitals

A woman crosses the Burhabalang River with her cow to avoid a 7km circuitous route (Photo by Manish Kumar)

Inadequate and inconvenient road connectivity due to poor planning compels many villagers in Mayurbhanj district of Odisha to risk a dangerous crossing of Burhabalang River everyday to reach the nearest town

The unending saga of farm distress in India

Ending India’s farm crisis needs a complete change in mindset (Photo by Bishnu Sarangi)

Farmers in India will continue to suffer unless there is a fundamental change in the pro-urban policy bias of propping up unsustainably low food prices

Temple carvers unite against scourge of silicosis

Without any effective investment in dust control mechanisms, lethal dust spreads freely around laborers in Pindwara’s stone-carving factories, where work is performed for temples (Photo by Yuvraj Dhir)

Three out of every 10 stone-carving workers in Rajasthan, who build temples, are facing death due to silicosis. They are now unionizing to demand freedom from disease and dignity in god’s work

Kamrup women lead Eri silk revival for improved livelihoods

Streamlining Eri silk weaving has helped women weavers earn a livelihood using their traditional skills. (Photo by Grameen Sahara)

Linking markets with traditional Eri silk weavers in many parts of Assam, non-profit organization Grameen Sahara has enabled thousands of village women to boost their household incomes

Community radio creates waves of change in Karnataka villages

Sunil and Nagamani at the Sarathi Jhalak radio station during a program. (Photo by Sudha Narasimhachar)

Run primarily by women, the Sarathi Jhalak radio station has brought administrators, experts and villagers on the same platform, giving rural communities a voice

Bengal farmers conserve heritage rice against climate vagaries

Farmers in Bankura district of West Bengal grow traditional varieties of rice, including aromatic rice, organically, to conserve and propagate them (Photo by ARSWS)

Going against the general preference for high-yielding rice, some marginal farmers in Bankura have started conserving, documenting and propagating traditional rice varieties that are on the brink of extinction

Pipli craftsmen adapt to modern needs for better prospects

Women artisans like Tina Chhatoi do most of the stitching involved in applique work in Pipli, a hub for traditional and modern applique handicraft (Photo by Rakhi Ghosh)

Despite falling demand, applique craftsmen and traders of Pipli in Odisha are trying to ensure that their handicraft evolves to satisfy changing aesthetic needs, with hopes for a better future

Unsafe behavior rampant in the countryside

Pulling water from a well without the safety of a wheel and pulley is common across India’s villages (Photo by Knut-Erik Halle)

Whether it is a national trait or simply a rural folly, there is a need to examine the cavalier neglect of basic safety rules that pervades life in villages across the country

Winter farming technologies boost incomes in cold desert

Growing fruits and vegetables is a challenge in Ladakh as the farming season is restricted to just four months. (Photo by Sharada Balasubramanian)

With the farming season limited to just four months in Ladakh, villagers have turned to low-cost technologies to grow vegetables in winter that improves diets and boosts incomes

Bhimashankar villagers multiply indigenous seeds

Farmers like Ramdas Landage have joined hands with a school to cultivate and conserve traditional varieties of crops (Photo by Varsha Torgalkar)

A school in Pune has got a rural community together to cultivate indigenous rice, millets and pulses, and helps them market the native varieties in order to conserve and propagate them

Mountain farmers adapt to life beyond apples

The importance of apple cultivation is decreasing in the mountain villages of Uttarakhand (Photo by Sandeep Chetan)

As impacts of climate change and unwise human interventions push traditional farmers in Uttarakhand to the wall, they are adapting by embracing new crops and livelihoods