-The Hindu Farmers in Punjab are worried about the implications of the three new farm bills that will allow them to sell their produce directly to private players. Vikas Vasudeva reports on the concerns of farmers, commission agents and workers despite the government’s assurances that the legislation empowers them In June 2020, 55-year-old Shingara Singh in Fatehpur village in Patiala, Punjab, sold his spring season maize crop at ₹700-₹800 per quintal, far...

-Down to Earth Exceptional growth in agriculture and acreage in kharif season precipitate a crisis like never before for farmers   In recent times, agriculture made headlines for all the wrong reasons: Farmers quitting cultivation; the sector turning into a perennial loss-making enterprise; and the country’s official policy to downsize the dependence on agriculture to reduce overall economic hardship among the poorest of the population. Agriculture’s fast-declining economic importance reached such an extent...

-The Indian Express Husk, bran, straw, stover, skin, molasses and bagasse are some of the agro-waste products obtained from rice, wheat, maize, millet and sugarcane. Farmers usually burn these waste products after harvest, often leading to massive air pollution as experienced in Delhi during Winters. Pune: A new study has found that coating jowar, bajra, wheat and maize seeds with organic mixture derived from sugarcane residue increases the yield of these cereals. City-based...

-The Indian Express The dairy industry's problems will only intensify with animals calving and production going up in the coming months Amroha (Uttar Pradesh): India’s Grand Festival Season takes off next month, starting with Rakshabandhan (August 3), Janmashtami (August 12), Ganesh Chaturthi (August 22) and Onam (August 31), followed by the nine-day Navaratri culminating in Dussehra (October 25), Diwali (November 14) and Chhath Puja (November 20). It is also the season for...

-The Indian Express Heatwaves, floods, droughts: Every decade between 1951-2015 had 7.4 warmer days and 3.1 warmer nights than the annual averages for daily maximum and nightly minimum respectively. The first ‘Assessment of Climate Change over Indian Region’, released by the Ministry of Earth Sciences recently, warns of tropical cyclones, thunderstorms, heat waves, floods and droughts in India unless mitigation measures are adopted soon. The projections are for the decades leading to...