-The Hindu Over the years we have lost over a lakh varieties of native rice. One district in Odisha is rediscovering some of them It is a balmy winter morning when I meet Kamli Bataraa, an ebullient Adivasi farmer, at her home in Belugan, in southern Odisha’s Koraput district. There is a hum across the village from the threshing of just-harvested paddy. When I ask Kamli about the rice varieties she grows,...

-The Indian Express In zones of prosperity, agriculture faces crisis, jobs are few, social aspirations don’t match economic realities After Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, farmers from Rajasthan came out on the streets demanding loan waiver and implementation of the Swaminathan Committee report. Protesting against government policies and demanding their share in the country’s development, which they argue have been denied to them, the farmers have shown unity across caste and class lines....

-The Economic Times KOLKATA: West Bengal's agriculture department has decided to encourage farmers to cultivate extinct varieties of rice is drawing up plans to create a market for them. The department is also helping farmers to adopt organic farming methods. Agriculture department officials said that these indigenous varieties of rice, which are also known as folk rice, have properties which make them suitable for cultivating in particular regions and are also highly...

-The Hindu Business Line As a part of the government’s push, States adjoining the Himalayan range will be encouraged to go completely organic Ahmedabad: Parshottam Rupala, the Union Minister of State for Agriculture & Farmers Welfare, informed that the government is increasingly focusing on organic farming to boost production of nutritionally rich agri produce. As a part of the government’s push, States adjoining the Himalayan range will be encouraged to go all organic,...

-The Indian Express As both IARI and IISS continued refining their respective products, procurement under the soil health card scheme gathered steam when the government sanctioned setting up over 6,000 mini labs in 2016-2017. New Delhi: Despite objections raised by senior officers, a low-cost digital soil-testing technology developed by the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), under the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), has been tweaked by a sister ICAR institute...