-The Indian Express Nearly half a century later, Millet is making a comeback, thanks to the intervention of the local administration and NGOs. Today, Hanhaga is among 1990 farmers across 163 villages in Keonjhar who have taken up the cultivation of Millet. Keonjhar: In the 1960s and ’70s, with the advent of the green revolution, the Indian taste for cereal tilted towards wheat and rice. This was the time when Rumbi Hanhaga (56),...

-The Indian Express Husk, bran, straw, stover, skin, molasses and bagasse are some of the agro-waste products obtained from rice, wheat, maize, Millet and sugarcane. Farmers usually burn these waste products after harvest, often leading to massive air pollution as experienced in Delhi during winters. Pune: A new study has found that coating jowar, bajra, wheat and maize seeds with organic mixture derived from sugarcane residue increases the yield of these cereals. City-based...

-Down to Earth Keonjhar district will introduce ragi for pre-school meals through DMF funds from July Locally cultivated ragi will be part of the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) scheme for the first time in Odisha, with Keonjhar district introducing it as part of the pre-school meal from July 2020 onwards. Additionally, 14 districts — a part of the state’s Millet Mission — will provide ragi through the public distribution system (PDS)...

-Hindustan Times A gradual shift towards cash crops at the expense of food crops and deficit rainfall over the years are the primary reasons behind the agrarian crisis in Maharashtra’s drought-hit Marathwada region, according to a study conducted by the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay (IIT-B). Published in the Environmental Research Letters in May, the study analyses the role of rainfall deficits and cropping choices in loss of agricultural yield in Marathwada. The...

-The Hindu True self-reliance won’t come from relentless industrialisation, but from localisation and decentralisation, as demonstrated by these remarkable stories of empowered rural communities Not so long ago, Dalit women farmers in Telangana used to face hunger and deprivation. Today, they have contributed foodgrains for pandemic relief. Farmers on the Tamil Nadu-Karnataka border have been sending organic produce to Bengaluru even during the lockdown. And Adivasi villages in central India are using...