-Business Standard Natural farming is an alternative to chemical fertiliser-based and high Input cost agriculture After decades of intensive agriculture, farms and farmers are in a crisis, food markets remain distorted, and consumers do not have access to nutritious diets. India needs a shift towards sustainable food systems. Among many alternative farming techniques is natural farming, with the potential to improve sustainability and also meliorate government finances. Natural farming is an alternative to...
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Looking up: The farm hope -Harish Damodaran
-The Indian Express The ongoing price recovery in major crops is in danger of being stymied by knee-jerk government response. A lot of analyst commentary on the latest quarterly GDP numbers for India has focused on the low growth in “nominal” terms: Gross value added (GVA) at current prices grew by just 6.3% year-on-year in July-September and 7.1% for April-September. If this first-half trend holds for the rest of 2019-20, it would...
More »Western Odisha farmers strike gold with black rice -Mayank Bhusan Pani
-The New Indian Express Sudam Sahu, a progressive farmer from Bargarh who has been growing Kalabati Dhana from 2014, collected two varieties of black rice seeds from Nayagarh which he has preserved till now. SAMBALPUR: A group of farmers in Western Odisha is not just reaping the benefit of cultivating black rice but also popularising the crop among paddy growers in the region. Black rice has a niche market for its nutritional and...
More »Subhash Palekar, father of Zero Budget Natural Farming, interviewed by N Madhavan (The Hindu Business Line)
-The Hindu Business Line Speaking to BusinessLine at a farm on the outskirts of Aurangabad, Subhash Palekar, father of ZBNF, rebuts every criticism and allays every fear that have been raised The Modi government sees zero budget natural farming (ZBNF) as a solution to the farm crisis. The 2018-19 Economic Survey recommended it and so did the 2019 Union Budget. In fact, Prime Minister Narendra Modi surprised many by asking farmers not...
More »The government needs to midwife Indian agriculture to an organic revolution -Abhik Roy and Nikhil Kumar
-Down to Earth Instead of making it difficult for the organic farmers, government should devise methods to reduce the complexity of the certification process Organic farming is native to India. However, since 1966, with the inception of the Green Revolution in India, it has taken a backseat. The transition from traditional agriculture to modern agriculture shifted the objective of farming. The need to change the methods of farming to meet the demands of...
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