-The Times of India NEW DELHI: The Intelligence Bureau (IB) has alerted the government about importers of pulses resorting to cartels to make a killing this year on red lentils (masoor). The report has named companies that are buying masoor in large quantities and cornering stocks in Canada, which is the largest exporter of red lentils to India. According to rough estimates, last year dal importers had reportedly made around Rs 3,500...

-IndiaSpend.com Beed and Washim (Maharashtra): You would not think there was a worsening farm crisis in India’s second-largest Agricultural economy if you met Jairam Jadhav in the central region of Marathwada, one of the areas facing a drought that equals the worst in a century. Jadhav, 35, is a happy man. Despite two seasons of truant rains, his well has enough water to supply his 20-acres of sugarcane, cotton and pigeon pea...

-Economic and Political Weekly Agriculture cannot be revived without a different approach to water, soil, crops and research. For the second year in succession, rainfall in the monsoon season has been less than normal. As many as 302 out of the 640 districts in the country have been declared drought-hit and the impact of the drought is the severest in nine major states of south, central and east India. It is striking...

-The Hindu Crop insurance has always been a knotty issue with the two previous ones, National Agricultural Insurance Scheme (NIAS) of 1999 and the Modified NAIS of 2010 failing to address the concerns. Hyderabad: Agriculture scientists, NGOs and farmer leaders have picked holes in the recently launched Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bhima Yojana (PMFBY) touted as the much-awaited ‘suraksha kavach’ (shield) and panacea for all crop insurance related ills. Crop insurance has always been...

-Hindustan Times Three new lentil (dal) varieties belonging to a family of legumes known to be poisonous since Hippocrates’s time could be back on your plates. But should you eat them? India’s chronic shortage of pulses – the essential soupy item in everyday meals – has made a cheap source of protein for millions very expensive. So, the country is thinking of bringing back khesari dal (scientific name: lathyrus odoratus), which became...