-The Hindu Business Line   Technology is transforming Indian agriculture and increasing output. This is good news, given that India may need to produce 90 million tonnes of foodgrain annually by 2030 to feed its growing population, says Vishwanath Kulkarni Jitendra, a prosperous farmer from Machrauli in Haryana, had barely hired a combine to harvest wheat on his 10-acre plot when clouds started building up. The weather office had predicted rains over the...

-The Telegraph   Paddy may not be the climate culprit that the world is making it out to be Agricultural scientist Pratap Bhattacharyya may have found a remarkable piece of evidence that absolves swathes of paddy fields stretching over millions of hectares of a climate crime. On the contrary, he believes that rice is doing its bit for the environment. A study by Bhattacharyya and his colleagues at the Cuttack-based Central Rice Research Institute...

-Down to Earth   People of West Bengal's Sunderbans region are setting up grain banks to safeguard against food crisis Subedan Bibi's mud hut is a few metres from the banks of the Bakchara river, a distributary of the Hugli in Sunderbans region of South 24 Parganas. When the river is in spate she and most others of Goyadham village move to the main market in the nearby block. "Floods and storms destroy...

-The Hindu   Whatever be the crop, farmers need guidance at the right time for harvesting a good yield. Right from availability of good seedlings, pest management strategies, regular visits to the plantation sites by experts and sourcing a good market for the produce are not only a farmer's tasks but also involve the experts dealing in the particular area. "The job becomes more challenging when one has to work among tribals and...

-The Independent Scientists are warning that wheat is facing a serious threat from a fungal disease that could wipe out the world's crop if not quickly contained. Wheat rust, a devastating disease known as the "polio of agriculture", has spread from Africa to South and Central Asia, the Middle East and Europe, with calamitous losses for the world's second most important grain crop, after rice. There is mounting concern at the...