-DeccanHerald.com  Thanks to a farmers' initiative, Karnataka now has around 80 desi varieties of finger millet to choose from A group of farmers and members of women’s self-help groups have gathered at Eshwar Gouda Patil’s field to celebrate ‘Ragi Field Day’. This farm in Mattighatta village, in Dharwad’s Kundagol taluk, has as many as 72 varieties of ragi (finger millet), cultivated on half an acre of land, leaves visitors awestruck. Kumara Naidu, a farmer...

-Behanbox.com Mumbai: Around 400 metres off the Gujarat state highway near Vautha village, along the snake-like curves of the Sabarmati river, lie nearly a hundred acres of land that government records describe as “non-useful riverside land”. But on the ground, in early April, Baluben Makwana led me through a dirt path to an unexpected scene. On one side was a sprawling expanse of wheat fields, ripe stalks swaying gently in the wind...

-Down to Earth Srikumar Khadi’s claim to his land in Odisha’s Sundergarh district is over a century old; but it still awaits recognition Srikumar Khadi’s great-grandparents moved to Bhuin-Jor from Dhamakpur in Odisha’s Sundergarh district around 100 years ago. They were offered a small piece of land in the forest by Bhuin-Jor’s inhabitants. They settled in the forest with the passage of time and started using the land as a homestead. They also...

The increase in the total number of suicides committed in India during 2020 in comparison to the previous years has hit the headlines recently. While some media commentators have stated that the economic distress (caused by job loss, income loss, failure of business, and growing hunger, among other things) in 2020 could have led to more suicides being committed, others have said that home isolation and deteriorating mental health (associated...

-Down to Earth Promoted by the government, short-duration varieties now dominate Punjab’s paddy landscape and allow farmers enough time to clear the field without setting them on fire. Why then are straw burning incidents still on the rise? Gursimran is somewhat dejected as he oversees a combined harvesting machine working his paddy fields. “Though the yield is better than what it has been in the past two years, it is still not...