-Scroll.in The squabble with Karnataka over river water has heightened agricultural distress, leaving many with significant debt. The three acres that Jayamohan owns in Orathanadu in Thanjavur district of Tamil Nadu has not seen a harvest since January. Encouraged by a bountiful north-east monsoon last November, Jayamohan anticipated a normal south-west monsoon in the middle of this year. He prepared his land in May for the kuruvai summer crop season (which is known...

Expanding irrigation network in the country is considered as essential to raise agricultural production in the face of increased frequency of droughts. However, a newly released report from the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare shows that there has actually been a fall in the growth rate of net irrigated area during the recent two decades. The report entitled State of Indian Agriculture 2015-16 reveals that the growth rate in...

-Livemint.com Pulses are important from the perspectives of food security, environmental sustainability and balanced nutrition Most pulses such as pigeon pea (tur dal), black gram (urad), green gram (mung), field beans (waal), moth beans (matki) and horse gram (kulith) are native to the Indian subcontinent and have been an integral part of our diet for centuries. However, the single-minded focus on cereals over the last 50 years—the green revolution in wheat and...

-Deccan Herald Patna: It’s a double whammy for Bihar. While 11 districts face the threat of floods due to a surge in the Ganga, the remaining 27 districts, out of 38, are on the verge of being declared drought-hit. The data procured from the Met department shows that Bihar has witnessed abysmally low rainfall this monsoon. Against a normal average rainfall of 803 mm, Bihar has received only 635.9 mm rainfall since...

-The Telegraph Cuttack: The threat of extinction looms large over the state's natural fish stocks in rivers and lakes because of unregulated inland fishing during the breeding season. The impact of unrestricted fishing is already being felt in the state's rivers, especially in the Mahanadi. There has reportedly been a drastic downslide in fish catch. The annual freshwater fish production in the state is around three lakh tonnes. While 87 per cent fishes...