-Down to Earth India needs to find a permanent solution to the problem of public stock holding, as it is a matter of survival for hundreds of millions people During the negotiations for WTO Agreement on Agriculture in 2001, India raised concerns over food security and flexibility that developing nations must have when it comes to providing subsidies to key farm inputs. Seventeen years have passed since then and countries like...

How many happy seeder machines are currently available in Haryana and Punjab? Against the backdrop of a recent advisory issued by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare in response to the dense smog that engulfed the entire NCR since October this year, the above question seems pertinent. The happy seeder machine is considered as a magic bullet  to curb the menace of stubble burning during the wheat-paddy cropping cycle,...

-Tehelka.com Learning from the recent starvation deaths in Jharkhand, the nation’s leaders must pay heed to the necessity of ensuring food security for all Food and hunger have been important issues this past month and the news has not been welcome. First it was India’s dismal rank in the Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2017 released by the International Policy Research Institute rankings — 100th among 119 countries. GHI looks at undernourishment, child...

-The Indian Express Delhi air pollution: The current smog and poor air quality in the National Capital Region has been blamed in part on stubble burning by farmers, especially in neighbouring Punjab and Haryana. What is the genesis of the problem? What are its potential solutions? * How widespread is crop stubble burning? It is mainly confined to Punjab, Haryana and parts of western Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, where farmers grow paddy and...

-The Hindu Business Line The Karnataka government’s efforts to popularise millet cultivation seem to be yielding results, thanks to a rising consumer demand based on awareness about healthy alternatives. Krishna Byre Gowda, Karnataka’s Agriculture Minister, cited drought, climate change and erratic monsoon as the driving factors for popularising millets such as ragi, jowar and bajra. These are less water-intensive crops compared to paddy or sugarcane and a shift to millet cultivation will help...