Nepal ranks among the world's most disaster-prone nations, with agriculture employing 64 per cent of the workforce and contributing 21 per cent to GDP.
This marks a strong mid-year achievement and underlines the government’s push to strengthen the cooperative ecosphere across agriculture, allied and non-farm sectors.
This fall does not reflect just a small hiccup – what the report calls a sharp “systemic contraction” in the guarantee of employment for rural households in Telangana.
The roadmap underscores how agriculture must evolve beyond incremental improvements to meet challenges including climate volatility, resource depletion and the imperative of significantly boosting farmer incomes.
Taking virtual testimony from farmers in Maharashtra and a district in Madhya Pradesh, the minister expressed serious concern at what he called a “mockery” of the insurance scheme designed to protect farmers from crop losses.
The activists alleged that data was selectively used, negative trial results ignored, and unsubstantiated performance claims amplified in order to push the technology into Indian farms without adequate scientific basis or regulatory rigour.
The Aswesuma scheme, introduced in 2023, aims to replace a decades-old programme with a new model that ostensibly uses multidimensional deprivation scores rather than just income thresholds.
Crucially, medium-scale irrigation proposals aimed at bolstering water access in Madhya Pradesh’s Bundelkhand region were discussed alongside measures designed to enhance water regimes for both human use and wildlife needs, particularly for reptiles like gharial crocodiles.