Rural Development

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 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.

The data put out by PIB confirms that farmer empowerment, aimed at building a resilient and self-reliant agricultural sector, has become a core element of India's strategy for inclusive growth.

Japan’s grant for dairy development is designed to empower smallholder farmers, who form the backbone of the country’s dairy production. The funding will go towards modernising farming practices, improving milk quality and safety, and introducing sustainable methods to make dairy farming more profitable and resilient.

The indigenously developed technology ‘Gausort’ was launched by the prime minister earlier on  5 October 2024 will be used in sex sorting. Through Gausort technology, Sex Sorted Semen will be available to the farmers of the eastern and north-eastern region at reasonable rates.

By equipping cooperative members with structured training and exposure to international norms, the initiative empowers them to meet stringent global quality thresholds and certifications – a big leap from patchwork, localized interventions.

This tiered approach underscores APEDA’s commitment to baseline outreach – casting a wide net to capture diverse innovation – and then funnelling support to ventures with the greatest capacity for export success.

The crisis is not only ecological but cultural, symbolizing the collapse of protection strategies and the fragility of coexistence in a land where these pachyderms once roamed freely.