The Zimbabwean government has reclaimed about 1,450 farms from resettled farmers, also known as A2 farmers, after a recent land audit revealed that the new farmers were not using their farms

A farmer was killed over a dispute which emerged over irrigation water share near Naban Khan Lakho village in the Lakha Road area late Monday night.

FINANCE MINISTER P. CHIDAMBARAM IS UNDER TREMEN-dous pressure

The Rs 60,000-crore loan waiver for small farmers has not exactly sent farming communities in the country into transports of joy, a dipstick survey by Business Standard correspondents, each of whom interviewed 25 to 30 farmers across India, shows. Some farmers, notably in Orissa, are moderately happy to have debts of Rs 5,000 written off. Others who benefit from a write-off of as much as Rs 77,000 are worried about how much they'll have to bribe to access the waiver. And there is bitterness among farmers who have been left out of the bounty owing to the size of their land-holdings

The government has so far distributed nearly Tk 4.70 crore to the poultry farmers all over the country, who have sustained losses due to avian influenza, as part of the compensation for exterminating the contaminated poultry and destroying eggs to prevent the spread of the disease in the country, said ministry sources. Sources in the Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock confirmed that out of the total amount, about Tk 95 lakh was distributed last year while the rest was distributed in the last two months. The government has raised the amount of compensation for culling poultry and destroying eggs under the

Farmers are hard hit by the re-closure of water in the canals in Abbasia and Cholistan areas of Tehsil Liaqatpur, which is affecting the standing wheat crop. Several local councillors including Dr Muhammad Aslam, Chaudhry Asghar Ali lumbardar Abdul Karim and others have urged early release of water in the canals, which had again been closed after a short reprieve earlier. They said water scarcity was also impacting sugarcane sowing, and if the canal closure continued, it would not only hurt the local farmers financially, but would also affect the per acre yield of those vital crops. Copyright Associated Press of Pakistan, 2008

State stands to gain from welfare schemes announced for minorities Roughly four lakh farmers in Kerala are expected to gain from the debt relief measures announced by Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram's farmer-friendly budget. Since the huge majority of farmers in debt in Kerala are marginal (holding below one hectare) and small (below two hectares), their debts could be totally waived. And a sizeable number of them will be from two districts, Wayanad and Idukki, and most of them will be the so-called

The district collector, Mr K. Devanand, on Friday asked rain-affected farmers to make good use of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) to harvest the remaining crop. The district collector said this while launching the programme in the fields of Allur village in Prakasam district. The biggest damage was suffered by the chickpea crop in the district and 5,392 acres were damaged in the sea-coast Kothapatnam mandal alone. Besides this, 2,400 acres of cultivated lands were damaged in Allur village. Mr Devanand said agriculture workers would be deputed for two days in chickpea fields and three days for tobacco harvesting.