Historians tell us of the colonial era stories of miserable conditions of workers, even bonded labour, in tea plantations of eastern India. However, the situation improved after independence. In the past few decades the tea industry has made steady profits even in worst years of economic downturn. And that is why reports of starvation deaths in tea plantations of Assam are so shocking. An Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) report says that...

If the malnourished in India formed a country, it would be the world's fifth largest — almost the size of Indonesia. According to Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), 237.7 million Indians are currently undernourished (up from 224.6 million in 2008). And it is far worse if we use the minimal calorie intake norms accepted officially in India. By those counts (2200 rural/2100 urban), the number of Indians who cannot afford...

Assam tea has failed to capture the market in the very country whose planters made it a marketable commodity in the state 150 years ago. The situation, however, can be turned around with a better marketing strategy, Mark Kibblewhite, an eminent tea scientist and a professor at Cranfield University in the UK, told The Telegraph on the sidelines of World Tea Science Congress which began at Tocklai Experimental Station at Cinnamara,...

Sivadasan's five-acre farm used to be a solitary patch in Kerala's Palakkad district, with bitter gourd, cucumber, cow peas and lady's finger growing amid a landscape dotted with paddy fields and plantations of rubber and spices.  Just five years later, more than 1.45 lakh farmers in the southern state have joined Sivadasan and started growing vegetables, reflecting a palpable shift sweeping across the Indian countryside.  "Vegetables are always more profitable than paddy,"...

-IANS   A Punjab-origin man in Argentina, who started a peanut farm a few years ago, has gone on to become the 'uncrowned king' of rice, soya and corn plantations in South America. Simmarpal Singh's company Olam, based in Singapore and run by people of Indian origin, is one of the major rice traders of the world, says R Viswanathan, India's ambassador to Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay. "The Argentines admire this young Indian's dynamism...