-The Hindu Ramesh from Hoovinahalli is making waves with his biofuel, a 1:10-litre combination of honge oil and diesel BENGALURU: This farmer from Hoovinahalli in Hassan district has not passed SSLC. Yet, his passion for innovation and experimentation is evident in all that he does. He runs a tractor, ragi-cleaning machine, and an irrigation pumpset on biofuel that he has produced and blended with conventional fuel. His achievement is being hailed by...

-Down to Earth Black rice is drought resistant and has rich medicinal properties. Manipur and Assam are reviving this variety Not very long ago, black rice (Oryza sativa) was forbidden in China. Not because it looked poisonous for its black colour, but because it had nutritional values, and found a place only on an emperor’s menu. For centuries, the nutritional values of this wild rice eluded common people. It is only now...

-Livemint.com In 1986, Italian journalist Carlo Petrini was outraged when McDonald’s opened its first outlet in Rome. He saw this as a threat to Italy’s culinary culture. He led a protest against the global industrialization of food, which culminated in the slow food movement. Starting in Rome, the movement is now a worldwide phenomenon. Edited excerpts from an interview at the Indigenous Terra Madre in Shillong: * What are the key achievements...

-Business Standard Indian farming was transformed after the mid-60s, on a wave of new agri technology and allied changes, but the costs of this model can no longer be ignored or its addressing be postponed It was around the mid-1960s when the Paddock brothers, the ‘prophets of doom’, predicted that in another decade, recurring famines and an acute shortage of foodgrain would push India towards disaster.   Their prophecy was based on a...

-The Statesman Koraput district is ahead of several others in meeting the UN Sustainable Development Goal, said May East, Scotland UN fellow, while addressing the Grow Your Own Food congress organised by Thread Siddharth village and Odisha Narisamaj at Kakirigumma here. This congress and Asian Ecovillage summit has been organised under the global discussions on how to implement these goals regionally and the discussion is also based on practical work conducted by...