-The Hindu Clause on listing ingredients dropped. A group of Indian pesticide manufacturers says that the proposed pesticides Management Bill, which is likely to be finalised this month, will harm both farmers and the domestic industry by not making it mandatory for the active ingredients of pesticides to be revealed in the registration process. “The draft Bill will allow importers to register readymade products without registering the active ingredients,” said Pradip Dave, President...

-MoneyControl.com The main aim of the commission was to come up with a system for sustainability in farming system and make it more profitable and cost competitive in farm commodities Farmers belonging to Madhya Pradesh began a 10-day strike on June 1 to seek better Minimum Support Price (MSP), a waiver for farm loans, higher compensation for damaged crops and full implementation of the MS Swaminathan report. Earlier this year, lakhs of farmers...

-RuralIndiaOnline.org Bt-cotton occupies 90 per cent of the land under cotton in India – and the pests that this GM variety was meant to safeguard against, are back, virulently and now pesticide-resistant – destroying crops and farmers The black scars dotting the green bolls of a wilting cotton plant on Ganesh Wadandre’s farm carried a message for scientists working on the ‘white gold’: go find a new antidote. “Those are the entry points,”...

-The Hindu Business Line A study of Farmer Producer Organisations in Bihar show mixed results — some successes but several challenges too The government has this lofty goal of doubling farmers’ income by 2022. Among the different instruments to achieve this goal, promotion of new and scaling up of existing Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) have been given focus. Given the extremely small landholdings, FPOs, through collectivisation, which leads to economies of scale, are...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has recently directed the Centre to take a decision on banning 18 pesticides within the next two months. Most of these have been banned in other parts of the world because of their health and ecological impacts. SC has also said that if a decision is taken to ban a particular pesticide, then the ban be implemented within 15 days. Farmers groups, public...