-DNA   Gadag: Rajendra Shirol, a farmer from the drought prone Gadag district, has found a way to find some respite from the increasing temperature. He has cultivated an Ayurvedic herbal crop `Ashwagandha', botanically known as ‘Withania somnifera.' He has been encouraging about 100 farmers in the Gadag and Koppal districts to sow the seeds of Ashwagandha, that can grow in plenty, despite the scarcity of water, infertility of land, hot temperature and...

-The Hindu   Native seed festival seesparticipation of 1,000 farmers Chennai: A State-level native seed festival with the participation of 1,000 farmers was held at Thandalam village near Arakkonam on Saturday. It was organised by the Thandalam Yogashema Trust along with Organic Delta Farmers Association, TEDE Trust and CREATE. Welcoming the participants from different districts, entrepreneurs and self-help groups, Ms. Radha Parthasarathy, managing trustee of the Trust, said that for the past 10 years they...

-The Financial Express   With newer varieties and improvement in yield, packaging and marketing, basmati-long hailed as the ‘king of rice'-is spreading its sweet aroma worldwide WALK INTO any supermarket today and the most eye-catching items will be in the section selling packaged rice. Rice, that humble, century-old staple of the Indian diet, has emerged from its traditional image-grains in an open gunny bag-to a slick new avatar. Today, rice, and basmati in...

-Down to Earth   District known for farmers' suicides has shallow soil depth which has very little capacity to retain water; report recommends switch to traditional millets, oilseeds Around half of the soil in Yavatmal district of Maharashtra, known both for suicides and for Bt cotton, is unsuitable for cotton cultivation, says a recent report from the National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Planning (NBSS & LUP) at Nagpur. The report,...

-The Hindu Business Line   Technology is transforming Indian agriculture and increasing output. This is good news, given that India may need to produce 90 million tonnes of foodgrain annually by 2030 to feed its growing population, says Vishwanath Kulkarni Jitendra, a prosperous farmer from Machrauli in Haryana, had barely hired a combine to harvest wheat on his 10-acre plot when clouds started building up. The weather office had predicted rains over the...