-The Times of India   West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s request for increased supply of urea as prices of nutrient based fertilizers are increasing has highlighted the challenges the Centre’s bid to reduce urea use and promote a more balanced product mix faces.  Arguing that farmers should not be asked to purchase costlier nutrient-based NPK (nitrogen, phosporus and potassium) fertilizer, Banerjee has asked Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for more urea for the...

The government plans to raise prices of urea, the most widely consumed fertiliser in the country, by a steep 40%. The move, necessitated by the government's mounting subsidy burden, is a test of its political courage as it comes just ahead of elections in five states.  Farmers in India use about 28 million tonne of urea annually, of which 6-8 million tonne is imported. The uptrend in prices of imported urea...

Prices increase six times this kharif forcing farmers to spend an additional Rs. 1,000 crore Increase in the prices of all fertilizers except urea six times during the current kharif season has burdened the farming community in the State by about Rs. 1,000 crore additionally. It is likely to add to the production cost heavily coupled with the increase in other input costs like seed, labour charges, diesel and pesticides. Scanty rainfall...

Studies by the India-Brazil-South Africa (IBSA) Academic Forum on food security issues in the three countries suggest that providing food access works best when backed by cash transfers. A paper on food security brought out by the UNDP’s Brasilia-based International Policy Centre for Inclusive Growth (IPC-IG), under the Forum, shows that despite the great strides in food production made by India people in this country are just not eating enough. Citing indices...

In his fields, Badhia Naval Singh , a farmer tilling 8 bighas of land in the Bagli tehsil in Madhya Pradesh, has been seeing something strange for a while now. Earlier, if he pulled out a tuft of grass, he would see earthworms . "Ab woh dikhna bandh ho gaye hain (they don't show up any longer)," says the 45-yearold . Also, he says, when he ploughed earlier, the soil...