To make the domestic coconut industry globally competitive, the Coconut Development Board has decided to impart technological training to farmers, processors, traders and exporters. To facilitate this, Union Minister of State for Agriculture K.V. Thomas will lay the foundation stone for a ‘farmers block' at the board's headquarters in Kochi on Septem ber 2, which is being observed as the World Coconut Day. The venue would serve as a centre for...

Civil society representatives from more than 70 countries wrapped up a United Nations forum today with an urgent call to action to improve the health of millions of men, women and children worldwide and step up efforts to achieve the globally agreed anti-poverty targets known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). In a wide-ranging declaration adopted at the end of the three-day meeting in Melbourne, Australia, participants stressed that achieving...

Without urgent global assistance to save the upcoming wheat-planting season in Pakistan, the food security of millions in the flood-hit nation is at risk, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned today. Severe flooding, which has affected some 18 million people in Pakistan, has inundated land half the size of Italy and wiped out much of the country’s household wheat seed stocks. Wheat-based flat bread is the main food for...

Long before they gained currency as the real-life counterparts of the Na'vis portrayed by Hollywood blockbuster "Avatar", the author of the Vedanta verdict — Justice S H Kapadia — had made clear about how he saw the Dongaria Kondhs, who are officially classified as "primitive tribal group". Kapadia, now chief justice of India, described this tribe from Orissa as a people "living on grass". His unflattering, almost dismissive description came...

The area under turmeric cultivation in Erode district has almost doubled this year because of the high price it fetches in the market. Farmers have cultivated turmeric in over 9,500 hectares of land till date. Normally turmeric is cultivated in about 5,000 to 6,000 hectares in the district. Cultivation “The price of the yellow spice has been hovering around Rs. 15,000 a quintal for the last few months. This has encouraged farmers to...