West Bengal's farmers switched to new scientific material called 'Poly Mulching' (made out of plastic) to protect crops. The North Bengal region has got some highly fertile agricultural land. But weeds, lack of proper sunlight, heavy downpour, Soil erosion, seed germination and cold weather conditions often result in harming the crops and ultimately curtailing agricultural production. However, to protect crops from such problems, farmers have now found a suitable way by using...

The Meena Gupta Committee formed by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) to look into forest rights and other issues involving Posco project, today visited the Jatadhari river mouth, site of the project’s proposed captive port, in its second trip to the state in less than one month. Posco proposed to set up a captive port at Jatadhari river mouth, 10 km from Paradip port, on 500 acres of...

Based on detailed analysis of weather data of last five years in Leh, Ladakh, scientists have attributed the recent cloudburst in the region to prolonged winters which may be due to climate change. "After going through the sequence of events of the weather that led to the cloudburst on August 6, it has been reinforced that the catastrophe was due to prolonged winters being witnessed in the region," sources in Leh-based...

The World Bank has agreed to provide USD 900 million financial aid to Pakistan which has been hit by devastating floods affecting 14 million people and leading to crop loss estimated at USD 1 billion. "The Government of Pakistan has requested around USD 900 million of financial support from the World Bank, which we have committed to provide," the World Bank said in statement. The current floods have claimed over 1700 lives...

The legacy of Industrial Agriculture With the world population passing the 6 billion mark last October, the debate over our ability to sustain a fast growing population is heating up. Biotechnology advocates in particular are becoming very vocal in their claim that there is no alternative to using genetically modified crops in agriculture if "we want to feed the world". Actually, that quote might be true. It depends what they mean...