-Press Information Bureau (Ministry of Agriculture) The two-day National Conference on Agriculture for Kharif Campaign has come out with detailed strategy for maximising crop production during the coming kharif season. The focus will be on ensuring timely availability of fertilizers and quality seed and also sufficient credit to farmers. Based on inputs from States and the Fertilizer Ministry, it is established that sufficient quantities of fertilizers and seeds are available in...

A new report by National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS) reveals that despite the nutritional value of millets, otherwise known as Coarse cereals*, there has been a drastic reduction in the area under its cultivation from 36.34 million hectares in 1955-56 to 18.6 million hectares in 2011-12 thanks to the wrong agricultural and price policies adopted by the Government (see table 1, and the links below). Based on previous National...

-The Hindu     ‘Krishi Karman' award to be presented toMinister of Agriculture in Delhi Guntur: Andhra Pradesh may have been known previously as the ‘rice bowl' of the country, but the State is on course to becoming the ‘cereal bowl' of India. The State recorded the highest production of Coarse cereals for the year 2012-2013 over the five preceding years and in recognition of this achievement, the Government of India has announced ‘Krishi Karman'...

-The Indian Express Farmers are simply not among those benefiting from the higher prices of their produce. While a fall in headline inflation numbers will ensure some breathing space for embattled policy makers, the sharp surge in food inflation to a 41-month high of close to 20 per cent in November hides an even more disturbing fact - that despite the consistent spike in the year-on-year agri price levels at the...

-The Hindu Protect interests of farmers while safeguarding ecology, he says Kochi: Agriculture has become a "legal responsibility" of the state following the enactment of the Food Security Act, eminent agricultural scientist M.S. Swaminathan said on Thursday. Delivering the inaugural address at the Tenth Anniversary conference of the Foundation of Agrarian Studies here, Prof. Swaminathan said, "Right to Food can be implemented only with home-grown food." Observing that public procurement of Coarse cereals was...