-The Hindu New Delhi: Parliament’s Standing Committee on Agriculture may have expressed concern at the unscientific and excessive use of pesticides in agriculture that pose a threat both to the environment and human health. But experts say their judicious use, combined with safe agricultural practices, is the only way out as the country’s growing demand for food cannot be met through organic farming. In its recently presented report in Parliament for 2015-16,...

-The Indian Express On Independence Day, we salute our freedom fighters. We also remember Lal Bahadur Shastri who gave us the slogan, jai jawan, jai kisan.   PM Modi needs to move from slogans to action to transform agriculture.   Atal Bihari Vajpayee expanded the slogan to jai jawan, jai kisan, jai vigyan. The present government has an array of slogans for the farmers. Prime Minister Modi has coined so many — swacchh bharat,...

Rising prices of dal: How to deal with it? The 68th session of the United Nations General Assembly declared 2016 as the International Year of Pulses. In India, however, ordinary citizens are under enormous duress due to the skyrocketing prices of dal/ lentils since the last one year. The website of Price Monitoring Cell of the Department of Consumer Affairs shows that dal prices varied across places. For example, the...

-Earth Island Journal It’s too early to hail Sikkim’s transition to chemicals-free agriculture an outright success, say observers Sikkim, the picturesque northeastern Indian state in the eastern Himalayas, announced in January that it had transitioned completely to organic agriculture — the first state in the South Asian nation to do so. The process of shifting to organic agriculture was initiated by the state government 13 years ago when it launched the Sikkim Organic...

-Down to Earth A parliamentary standing committee blamed Agriculture Ministry’s skewed policy for the inequality in fertiliser usage The parliamentary standing committee on agriculture has recommended formation of a “Pesticide Development Authority” to ensure balanced use of chemical fertilisers in the wake of declining agricultural productivity. The 29th report, called “Impact of chemical fertilizers and Pesticides on agriculture and allied sectors in the country”, was tabled in Parliament by the committee. The...