-The Hindu Business Line Norman Borlaug is regarded as the ‘father' of the Green Revolution. It's his birth centenary today We cannot talk about India's Green Revolution without mentioning Nobel laureate Norman Borlaug, the globally renowned wheat scientist. He was a great friend of India and the Indian farmer in particular. Indeed, when he died in September 2009 aged 95, there was great sorrow in the Green Revolution belt in Punjab and Haryana. As...
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Sowing Debt and Harvesting Misery -K Naresh Kumar
-The New Indian Express Hyderabad: Candle in the wind is a disturbing, 52-minute documentary. Screened at Goethe Zentrum on Saturday evening, it was seen with rapt attention by a group of viewers who were students and working professionals. This 2012 venture, directed by Kavita Bahl and Nandan Saxena, highlights the farmer suicides escalating in Punjab where the widows are facing a major crisis, yet re-negotiating their spaces in a patriarchal society...
More »Govt regulator paves way for field trials of GM food crops including wheat, rice and maize -Vishwa Mohan
-The Times of India NEW DELHI: Taking a major step forward to scientifically assess 'risk' and 'safety' aspects of transgenic crops, the government's top regulator - Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) - on Friday revalidated 10 varieties of GM crops including wheat, rice, maize and cotton and allowed multi-national seed companies to go for "confined field trials" of these varieties. The companies like Monsanto, Mahyco and BASF whose applications got revalidation...
More »Uttarakhand farmer’s seed saving movement holds promise-MJ Prabu
-The Hindu Jardhar village comprises of nearly 26 small hamlets in Uttarakhand. Like hundreds of villages in the country agriculture is a major occupation here. But the village is known for more than just agriculture. It houses some of the country's best and ‘lost' ancient seed varieties. This is thanks to Mr. Vijay Jardhari, a small farmer and founder of seed saving movement called Beej Bachao Andolan (seed savers movement), who has managed...
More »India's rice warrior battles to build living seed bank as climate chaos looms-John Vidal
-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...
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