-The Hindu GHUMNOOR (ADILABAD Dt.): In what could be the first step towards a welcome reversal of current farming practices in the Agency areas, a hotelier from Hyderabad, Ram Babu, has tied up with tribal farmers of Ghumnoor in Sirpur (U) mandal of Adilabad for the purchase of indigenous varieties of millets. Instead of sowing the vexatious Bt cotton, the farmers will now cultivate local varieties of foodgrains in a part of...

-The Hindu     Farmer plans to set up a farm showcasing 250 varieties Mysore: Known to conserve indigenous varieties of rice from different parts of the country, S.R. Srinivasmurthy, paddy cultivator from T. Narsipura in Mysore district, has augmented his rich collection in recent years and plans to set up a demonstration farm this season. The demonstration farm will feature about 250 rice varieties, collected by him over the years. A "farmer by accident", who...

-The Guardian Rice conservationist Debal Deb grapples with 'mindless Indian elite' to reintroduce genetically diverse, drought-tolerant varieties   Fifty years ago, every Indian village would probably have grown a dozen or more rice varieties that grew nowhere else. Passed down from generation to generation and family to family, there would have been a local variety for every soil and taste - rice that would grow well in droughts or deep floods, which had...

-SunStar.com FARMERS, particularly those growing rice, can help reduce methane emissions into the atmosphere by adopting controlled irrigation or alternate wetting and drying (AWD) technology. Developed by the Laguna-based International Rice Research Institute (Irri), AWD is a technology that allowed rice fields to dry for a certain period before applying irrigation water. Also called controlled irrigation or intermittent irrigation, AWD technology can actually save farmers almost one-third of irrigation water without sacrificing yields....

-The Telegraph Nagpur: The Maharashtra government has given a slew of private companies permission to conduct field trials of genetically modified crops at state agriculture universities' farms, rejecting its dissenting agriculture minister's suggestion for a public debate first. Before this, no Indian state had allowed field trials of GM crops since October last year, when a Supreme Court-appointed expert panel recommended a 10-year moratorium on such trials - though the court has...