Amon crops survive pest threat
despite the two recent floods which forced farmers to plant seedlings late, Bangladesh has achieved season's target of cultivation of paddy on 5.3 million hectares, say officials. In
despite the two recent floods which forced farmers to plant seedlings late, Bangladesh has achieved season's target of cultivation of paddy on 5.3 million hectares, say officials. In
While the country is actively engaged in discussing the nuclear deal, there is little dialogue on another Indo- us deal, which is being quietly implemented. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had signed
>> Chadians could go hungry despite bumper crops, notes an
In February this year, Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar announced that the country could export wheat in the near future. "If the current weather persists and the country's wheat production
The World Trade Organization (wto) ruled on October 15 that the us has failed to bring subsidies and export credit guarantees to its cotton farmers in conformity with wto rulings. The ruling is a
india's fertilizer subsidy for 2007-08 is worth Rs 22,532 crore, which is estimated to be less than half of the requirement. So should the fertilizer subsidy be doubled? Or is it time to think
Authorities in Somalia's self-declared autonomous region of Puntland in the northeast have appealed for international aid following the destruction of thousands of hectares of pasture and farmland by a locust infestation.<br><br> "We issued an appeal for help on September 23; Puntland alone cannot deal with this,' Hassan Arab, the deputy minister of rangeland and forestry, told the <font class="UCASE">un</font>'s Integrated Regional Information Networks. "This time the swarms are bigger and more destructive than the ones we had in June. They have also spread to a wider area,' he said.
After decades of promoting urea to increase soil fertility, the government has begun to acknowledge that it has achieved quite the opposite. The fact is soil fertility in parts of India is declining because of excessive and imbalanced use of fertilizers. And this confession has come from none other than Kanti Lal Bhuria, union minister of state for agriculture. On August 31, Bhuria admitted in the Rajya Sabha that "there were instances of deterioration of soil fertility and nutrient deficiency in some parts of the country, especially the Indo-Gangetic Plain'.<br>
Most of the medicinal plants grow wild and are collected from forests. Hundreds, and possibly thousands, of plant species are being harvested by millions of poor rural population and used by millions around the world for treating a variety of illnesses. The present study is based mainly on primary data collected from the farmers of Uttaranchal who have been cultivating some of the medicinal and aromatic crops.
The contradications of our rural credit system are somehow camouflaged by the "achievements" of disbursed targets and, of recent, by the success of programmes like doubling of agricultural credit. The time has come when we need to seriously look into the emerging possibility of zero-credit based organisation of production by the small farmers' associations and their chances of joining with corporate capital. Oct-Dec 2007
Mulberry sericulture is a labour-intensive industry in all its phases, namely, cultivation of silkworm food plants, silkworm rearing, silk reeling and other post cocoon processes. In the global context, silk accounts for about 0.2 per cent of total textile fiber production. However, in value terms, silk stands for high value export oriented items in the world trade. Oct-Dec 2007
Livestock are almost an integral and inseparable component of the farming system in the state of Uttaranchal. The rural poor have sustained themselves in difficult conditions, and in their endeavour, livestock continue to be their active partner. Oct-Dec 2007
Commerce minstry's subsidy package to bail out vanilla farmers The commerce ministry will bring out a subsidy package to bail out vanilla farmers who have been badly hit by the falling prices of
landmark is a much abused word when it comes to legal copy. But the Bombay High Court's recent order that six mining companies would have to compensate farmers in north Goa for rendering their
Much has to be sown in the country's agriculture before a bountiful harvest can be reaped
trial and error: The Genetic Engineering Approval Committee has approved large-scale trial of Bt Brinjal, the first ever genetically modified food crop. This comes on the heel of a latest ASSOCHAM
The US environment regulator has been sued for approving a popular pesticide, harmful for farm workers and rural residents. On July 31, farmer unions and NGOs filed a lawsuit in the San Jose federal
the fight between the Karnataka government and Bangalore-based Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprise (nice) has taken yet another ugly turn. nice has filed a petition against the state government
Mizoram has recently sought central aid to check the fallout of an increasing rodent population in the state. The state disaster management and rehabilitation department (dmrd) recently submitted a