-IANS Shimla: Himachal Pradesh, whose economy largely banks on agriculture and horticulture, aims to develop bio villages by promoting organic Farming. The state is also eyeing investment in cold chains. An additional 2,000 hectares will be brought under organic Farming and there are plans to develop 200 bio-villages in the next fiscal, a government spokesperson told IANS. He said farmers in the bio-villages would use only bio-fertilizers and bio-pesticides and discourage...

-Down to Earth Long-term exposure to organophosphate insecticides puts the Farming community at a higher risk of developing diabetes, shows a study IN 2011, a 15-year-old girl from Madurai was admitted to hospital for diabetes ketoacidosis. It is a life-threatening condition that develops when cells in the body are unable to get the sugar (glucose) they need due to the lack of insulin. Krishnan Swaminathan, an endocrinologist and president of the...

-The Economic Times blog In every Union Budget presentation, agriculture is given a place of prominence. This is not surprising, given that 50% of India’s population is dependent on agriculture. Budget 2017 was no different. Both the Economic Survey and the Budget speech stressed heavily on improving agricultural infrastructure and augmenting farmer incomes. The key drivers expected to set this off are areas such as investment in irrigation infrastructure, development of mandis...

-The Economic Times SILIGURI: Acute shortage in cold storage capacity has put potato farmers in great distress in West Bengal, which is the second largest producers of the tuber in the country after Uttar Pradesh. The situation, if not managed soon, may cause severe rural level socio-economic crisis in many districts of the state. As the potato sowing and reaping timeline goes, farmers start loading their produce at cold storages during March...

-Hindustan Times Bhopal: Madhya Pradesh’s first “cashless” village is actually “waterless”, prompting villagers to adopt a novel initiative of sourcing water through rooftop water pipes from tubewells located in their agricultural fields 1,000 to 2,000 feet away. Thick black water pipes running over the rooftops and treetops in the village, coming from the agriculture fields might be mistaken as electric wires at first sight. “We don’t care about cashless status as our...