Garhwali villagers resist new central farming plans, stick by age-old ways attuned to nature Jardhargaon is a sprawling cluster of villages tucked away in the Himalayan folds in Tehri district of Garhwal. A panoramic view of pine- and sal-covered mountains, green and freshly showered, surrounds us, as little streams spout out of boulders at every turn of the winding hill roads and clouds hang like a dark cover overhead. But...

Union Agriculture minister Sharad Pawar’s made a last-ditch effort to win support for his controversial Seed Bill, 2010 by calling an all-party meeting in Parliament earlier this week. He was candid about the fact that this legislation tops his “must do” list. But the Opposition — supported by a section of the Congress—weren’t having any of it. “The proposed bill is not only anti-farmer but also brazenly favours multinationals in the...

-The Economic Times   The latest forecast of the Met office suggesting a weakening of the south-west monsoon during the second half of the monsoon season is not cause for panic. It is the distribution of rainfall across space and time rather than the aggregate percentages that matter for the farm sector. The good news is that both the spatial and temporal distribution of rainfall has been satisfactory so far. A good reservoir...

Breakthroughs in the production and productivity of wheat and rice in the sixties and of cotton recently have been much appreciated, but similar advances in maize have gone largely unnoticed and unsung. Maize output has soared in the past 10 years from a mere 12 million tonnes in 2000-01 to over 21 million tonnes in 2010-11. This increase can largely be attributed to a surge in crop productivity rather than...

July is a month when we need to remind ourselves how reforms have changed India since 1991, from vulnerability to resilience, whether to external shocks (say, oil) or internal ones (droughts). In 2009, we witnessed the worst drought since 1972, yet the agricultural growth rate stayed positive (0.4%), nor did we resort to any major cereal imports. And in 2010-11, we are likely to have a record harvest of 241 million...