-The Indian Express While tractor sales trebled during FY04-14, the last year saw a reversal in the trend with the agri industry facing multiple issues. If there is one indicator capturing the changes that took place in rural India over the past decade, along with the emerging signs of distress in the last year, it is the sales of tractors. Between 2003-04 and 2013-14, domestic tractor sales more than trebled from under...

-Al Jazeera The country's summer rains are due to start on June 1, but they may still leave some farmers disappointed. India’s monsoon rains, upon which the country relies so heavily, are expected to arrive "on time" according to the country’s Meteorological Department (IMD). The arrival of the summer monsoon is monitored very closely in India. Agriculture accounts for 15 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), and it employs some 60 percent of...

-The Telegraph Guwahati: Tea Research Association and London-based Commonwealth Agricultural Bureau International have joined hands to develop a more ecological approach to tea production in order to reduce pesticide application. "The project will eventually lead to development of a toolbox of tried and tested practices to facilitate transition towards ecological production. The project envisages the development of a package of practices in relation to pest management, leading to the adoption of non-pesticide...

-India Today Ahmedabad: IIT-Madras graduate Kannan Lakshminarayan dusted a few copies of "Young India" to find Mahatma Gandhi's vision and initiate cotton farmers to use miniature spinning machines right in their village where they grow the crop and increase their income. Following this, the middleman was out, the long-drawn value chain was short-circuited while farmers became spinners first and subsequently, weavers and even garment makers. In 1920, Mahatma Gandhi had written in...

-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The average protein intake of a person through normal diet has dipped 6-10% in the past two decades with almost 80% of rural population and 70% of urban people not getting the government-designated 2,400kcal per day worth of nutrition, latest data shows. Comparative estimates drawn by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) reveal that in urban areas the gap in nutrition intake...