-Outlook Pulses are falling off the poor man’s plate. Price rise may hit the middle class next. Pulses—all-important as a source of protein—are set to be spoilers this year in the government’s endeavour to keep a check on food inflation. Already, over the last nine months, the prices of some pulses have jumped 64 per cent in major cities. This is because of below-normal monsoon last year, compounded by untimely rain and...

-Hindustan Times Policy makers have no control over fickle weather whims and complex forecasts. Regardless of the eventual course and quality of summer rains brought on by drafts of breeze that stream 8,000 km from the southern Pacific, the early predictions did give an early heads up of what was likely in the next few months. Yet, every drought year, India’s response to deal with scanty summer rains has been knee-jerk, marked...

-The Tribune Transformative approaches to agriculture are the need of the hour. For this, we have to impart climate resilience and rehabilitate economically stressed farming communities of agriculturally developed regions. Since more than two decades now, farmers have been committing suicides in India, a fact that reflects the harsh realities of farming. Most of these farmers were traditional family farmers, leading a lifestyle based on traditions and beliefs. The intensive commercial commodity-based...

-PTI RAIPUR: Scientists here have developed a high zinc-enriched variety of rice that is expected to play a crucial role in fighting malnutrition in tribal-dominated Chhattisgarh where nearly seven lakh children are still malnourished. The new paddy seed, called "Chhattisgarh Zinc Rice-1", the first zinc biofortified rice variety in India, was launched by the state variety release committee, the authority for official release of new varieties of seeds, in March and its...

-The Financial Express Sorai Village: Even as official data show food inflation at 5-6%, elevated levels compared with the subdued prices of most other items, farmers are barely realising remunerative prices for their produce, another reason why rural consumption demand is dismally low. Potato farmers in Uttar Pradesh, for example, are selling the vegetable at a fifth of the price a year ago, thanks to a glut caused by excess production...