With surplus onion in markets across the country, there is finally some relief for the consumers as prices of the bulb fell by about Rs1,000-Rs1,500 per quintal on Monday. However, it irked farmers so much that they shut down the wholesale market at Lasalgaon in Nashik in the afternoon and demanded lifting of the ongoing export ban. The Lasalgaon Agriculture Produce Market Committee (APMC) wholesale market opened on Monday with onions...

Everyone agrees that there is a food crisis. As ordinary members of the public we know there’s one every time we go out shopping for vegetables. My mother knows there’s a crisis because, after recently sacking her cook, she discovered the lady had left with all the onions in the house. The media agrees there’s one, and sends more TV crews to talk to onion farmers, even though the TV reporters...

Decline in number of pollinators reduces yield potential of crops Bees die the day after pesticide application Decline in number of feral and hived colonies Indiscriminate use of pesticides has resulted in the decline of honeybee population in Idukki and Kasaragod districts, studies show. S. Devanesan, Professor and Principal Scientist, All India Co-ordinated Research Project (AICRP) on Honeybees and Pollinators, College of Agriculture of Kerala Agricultural University, Vellayani, said indiscriminate use of pesticides caused...

In India, people are upset about onions. Expensive cooking oil is causing hoarding in China, a practice banned by the government. Meanwhile, flour and bread are the main source of riots in Algeria and now Jordan. Worries over food prices are gathering pace and triggering alarm among politicians across the world. For there is nothing more likely to bring down a government than ignoring starving citizens, as Marie Antoinette found to...

The Bihar government has launched an "organic farming promotion programme" for the cultivation of organic crops in all the districts of the state. The government has decided to develop 38 "organic grams (organic villages)" for which a sum of Rs 255 crore has been sanctioned for five years. Some of these villages are: Dahour (Patna), Sartha (Nalanda), Belsand (Gopalganj), Gaighat Jaata (Muzaffarpur), Rajapaakar (Vaishali) and Narpatganj (Araria). This programme is being run...