With rich natural resources, biodiversity, dependable rainfall (annual average close to 2000 mm) and lower use of pesticides, north eastern states of the country could become a hub for organic products Cultivation, the demand for which is up in global markets, an independent research paper has said. The paper has also urged the central government and the North Eastern Development Council to create an umbrella policy so that the potential of...

Even as recent media reports caution that most fruits and vegetables are largely unfit for human consumption due to their high chemical content, pesticides continue to be used recklessly in the fields of Punjab. The ‘Granary of India’ constitutes 2.5 per cent of the total agricultural land in India, but consumes more than 18 per cent of the total pesticides used in India. Within the state the worst affected is the southwestern...

A day after initiating land acquisition process for Posco-India’s mega steel plant project near Paradip, the Orissa government on Wednesday said 470 families could face displacement due to the mega plant. “The Rehabilitation and Periphery Development Advisory Committee (RPDAC) had already finalised a compensation package for the affected families,” Revenue and Disaster Management Minister Suryanarayan Patra informed the State Assembly. The steel major required 4,004 acres for the Rs. 51,000 crore project...

The UN's food and agriculture arm today advocated the use of jatropha for producing bio-diesel and said the crop can help farmers improve their financial condition in dry areas. "Using the energy crop jatropha for bio-diesel production could benefit poor farmers, particularly in semi-arid and remote areas of developing countries," said a report published by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). Jatropha curcas grows...

Crops are grown outside our towns. Anger over food prices grows in our towns. Put these two facts together, and you can figure out exactly how divorced, sometimes, the justifiable concern about food inflation is from the cold realities of agriculture. It is not as if we can really blame ourselves for blindness, either; the unreformed, statist nature of price discovery in agriculture insulates us, as in no other sector,...