-DNA Joining ranks with nearly ten other big states, Gujarat government has now decided not to allow field trials of any Genetically Modified (GM) food crops within its boundaries. The decision is a significant one as it comes from the home state of prime minister Narendra Modi which he was leading till few months ago. Now with Gujarat also saying no to field trials of GM crops, Maharashtra remains the only state...

-IANS Leh: For Tsetan Punchok, a 50-something farmer from the distant village of Partapur in Ladakh in Jammu and Kashmir, life was difficult in the 3,000-metre highlands where summer lasts barely four months and for long, he could only grow potatoes and turnips. His life, however, changed in the last few years when he came in touch with scientists of the Defence Institute of High Altitude Research (DIHAR). DIHAR, a laboratory of premier...

-Women's Feature Service Tribal families in Bankura, West Bengal, living on a stable diet of potato and rice and occasionally some 'daal' (lentils), are now consuming a variety of vegetables, cereals, fruits and animal protein with relish on a daily basis, marking a sea change in the nutrition parametres in one of the most backward districts of India. The credit for this dramatic transformation goes to the dry land sustainable integrated farming...

-The Hindu Trap crops are grown to attract insects or other organisms to protect main crops from pest attack. Protection may be achieved either by preventing the pests from reaching the crop or by concentrating them in certain parts of the field where they can be destroyed. The principle of trap cropping rests on the fact that virtually all pests show a distinct preference to a certain crop stage. Farmers are being...

-The Economic Times None of the standard explanations quite explain the rise in food prices India has seen: pronounced since 2006 and alarming after 2010. Drought and poor rains? The country has seen good aggregate rainfall in most of those years. Spike in global prices? Those were high in 2007-08, not now. Fragmented value chains that allow middlemen to grab large margins? The value chain has always been fragmented. Growth has slowed...