Asit Tripathy, Chairman of Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) has pointed out that Indian states need to promote contract farming to ensure that farmers get remunerative prices and assured market for their produce apart from getting freed from the clutches of middlemen. India's national agricultural policy also envisages private participation through contract farming and land leasing arrangements to allow accelerated technology transfer, capital inflow and assured market...

Two villages in Uttar Pradesh have reversed the trend of migration by digging six kilometres of channels to bring water to drought-hit farms Call it the fallout of seven years of severe drought or government inaction, a silent revolution is brewing in Lalitpur district of Uttar Pradesh. Communities are getting united and digging channels to bring water from government canals to their fields. Some are volunteering labour, while those belonging to...

The visit of Union rural development secretary, B K Sinha, to inquire into the killing of MGNREGS worker Subal Mahto here at Bathua village on Sunday has not only exposed serious irregularities in the schemes but also negligence on part of officials in supervising the work. Sinha s visit seems to have been prompted after Bokaro DC Amitabh Kaushal took action against four persons including two officials in this regard. Kaushal...

As the demand for a ban on Endosulfan in India is gaining pitch and Karnataka being the latest state to ban the pesticide, the Pesticide Manufacturers and Formulators Association of India (PMFAI) is going around crying foul. They are leaving no stone unturned to save endosulfan. Press meets across the country and plugged newspaper reports maligning studies that have indicted endosulfan in the past is a desperate attempt to save...

Seventy-five-year-old Tukaram Vithal Gholap has walked for over three days from his village in Murbad (Thane district) to demand land rights. “I have fines from the Forest Department since 1969, which means I used to cultivate that land since then,” he said. Yet the Forest Department, which measured his land, confirmed only 29 gunthas (less than one acre), whereas he staked claim for about six acres. A tired Tukaram marched with...