PUNE: The cotton export debacle has created an oversupply of Bt seeds in the market with angry farmers expected to plant less area in the coming summer season. Companies are bracing for a price war in branded cotton seed, a far cry from the usual scenario where state governments impose a ceiling on maximum retail prices. Cotton is India's most important farm-produced industrial raw material and contributes a third to the...

A new report underlines the benefits of organic farming in the age of climate change While addressing a conference on the National Water Week this week, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh underlined the brewing water crisis. It could as well have been called the ‘National Water Weak’ — for this precious commodity for life is struggling to survive. The maximum blame for wastage of water is often put at the doors of...

-DNA The state government’s proposal to let farmers circumvent the agriculture produce market committees and sell their yield directly to consumers — which essentially means whoever they wish to sell it to — needs to be welcomed even by those of us in the cities who may not be conversant with agricultural practices. While the middlemen who control the APMCs are bound to raise howls of protest about the attempt to overturn...

-One World South Asia The World Bank signs an agreement with India to inject $ 352 million into the National Dairy Support Project, an initiative designed to revive the flagging fortunes of milk production in the country. Other than being crucial to the nutritional security of the country’s population; dairy farming or dairying is also a major source of livelihood for 147 million rural households in India. Spurred by the success of the...

-PTI Chairman of Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council, C Rangarajan today said Agriculture Produce Marketing Committees (APMCs) have not helped the farmers in gaining higher level of income.  "The marketing arrangements with respect to agricultural products remain very archaic", he said, delivering the convocation address at the University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore.  "Some of the legislations such as APMC have also not helped the farmers. There is a big difference between what the...