-The Hindu Business Line Karnataka, the first State to formulate an organic farming policy way back in 2004, has stepped up measures to spread the concept among farmers in recent years. Also, it has been working on rebuilding farmers’ interest in millets through incentives such as guaranteed buy-back and a bonus over the minimum support price. To provide market linkages to the over 1 lakh organic farmers in the State, the Karnataka government...
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A common class of insecticides puts farmers at high risk of diabetes -Megha Prakash
-Down to Earth Long-term exposure to organophosphate insecticides puts the farming community at a higher risk of developing diabetes, shows a study IN 2011, a 15-year-old girl from Madurai was admitted to hospital for diabetes ketoacidosis. It is a life-threatening condition that develops when cells in the body are unable to get the sugar (glucose) they need due to the lack of insulin. Krishnan Swaminathan, an endocrinologist and president of the...
More »Towards less-cash agriculture: Well before demonetisation, low credit-driven model came up in Dewas -Vivian Fernandes
-The Financial Express In Madhya Pradesh’s tribal districts of Dewas and Khargone, the NGO, Samaj Pragati Sahayog, discourages cash transactions for agricultural inputs. The interest rates are usurious and vary according to commodities. For fertiliser, it is dheda—loan for the stuff has to be repaid 1.5 times over by the end of the harvest season. For pesticides it is sawa, or 1.25 times. Even barter can be extortionate. One quintal of...
More »Will Pusa Arhar 16 solve India's pulse problem? -Sayantan Bera
-Livemint.com Pigeon Pea variant Pusa Arhar 16 could prove a game changer for inflation-wary policymakers as it has a maturity time of 120 days down from 160-270 days of current varieties New Delhi: Anew high-yielding pulse developed by government scientists at a leading research institute could prove a game changer for inflation-wary policymakers and consumers alike. Pusa Arhar 16, a dwarf pigeon pea created by scientists at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI),...
More »Crop devastation: After whitefly, brown plant hopper turns nemesis for Punjab's farmers -Anju Agnihotri Chaba
-The Indian Express Paddy growers in the poll-bound state suffer huge losses from unanticipated insect pest attack. Jalandhar: For Punjab’s farmers, fortune always seems to smile on the other side. Last year, it was the whitefly sucking pest that ravaged their cotton crop. This time round, it’s the brown plant hopper (BPH) that has caused significant yield and price realisation losses for paddy grown in large swathes of the state. And there...
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