-The Pioneer   Raipur: A significant initiative is being taken up at State Government and administrative levels to link the tribal ‘Pahadi Korwa' families,residing in remote pockets of Korba development block, with farming activities. With the work being done by the Government for the development of these tribal families, a new thought is emerging among the tribals who are keen to take up agricultural activities.According to official sources, there were a total of...

-The Business Standard   How a law to conserve groundwater led to a better paid and better organised migrant workforce Ludhiana: For some years now, Punjab's fields have lain fallow through the searing dry heat of May; but come June's steamy humidity, small bands of lithe, slender men from Bihar fan out across the waterlogged paddy fields, transplanting rice saplings with fluid efficiency. Bihar's paddy planters have frequented Punjab since the 1960s when rice...

-The Telegraph   Supaul: A college graduate hailing from a farmers' family, Anil Kumar Yadav (32) roamed around in Delhi and Mumbai in search of a job only to return empty-handed, about three years ago. The very idea of getting engaged in the family's traditional vocation was "nightmarish" to him. Anil, a resident of Samda Chowk village under Basantpur block of Supaul district, around 350km northeast of Patna, today owns a spanking motorcycle,...

-The Times of India CHENNAI: Indian scientist Sanjaya Rajaram has won the prestigious World Food Prize, considered the Nobel prize of food and agriculture, for 2014 for his contribution to developing high-yield wheat cultivars 'Kauz' and 'Attila'. The wheat varieties produce at least 15% higher a yield than any other type, by holding more grains on each stalk, and are currently cultivated over more than 40 million hectares across the world. Rajaram is...

-The Hindu   Government policies, vagaries of weather drive them to the wall Anantpur (Andhra Pradesh): The agriculture scenario in the Anantapur district might well be on the path to irreversible damage if unchecked and acted upon with immediate urgency. Over 15 per cent of farmers are leaving agriculture altogether, if the statistics available with the Agriculture Department are to be extrapolated to the ground realities and understood in that context. Speaking to The...