-Business Standard Patna/Nalanda: Baldev Prasad Mandal, a native of Painathi panchayat in Bihar's Patna district, sold 250 quintals of rice to the village-based primary agriculture credit societies (PACS), an agency responsible for procuring foodgrain directly from farmers at the rate of Rs 1,660 a quintal in March this year. Even as the new kharif season is about to begin, Mandal is one of the many farmers in the state who are...

-The Hindu Paddy, maize, groundnut, and castor likely to see low yield, says report. This year’ s farm output may fall by only around 4.5 per cent despite the projection of a strong El Nino year by the India Meteorological Department, says a recent report. During the previous El Nino years, farm production fell by an average of 8% across all major crops. A normal monsoon, however, could lead to a 0.6-%...

  If environmental degradation disturbs you and you are averse to reading technical manuals and copious volumes on the subject, there is some good news for you.    A recently published book from Gene Campaign entitled Coping with Climate Change is doing the rounds among environmentalists, civil society activists, public servants and researchers. Edited by Dr. Suman Sahai, the book has been written in a coffee book style to make easy serious...

-Business Standard Spread of irrigation, rise in drought-tolerant seeds have come as saviour, says study The southwest monsoon might have made a good start, but its future looks bleak, with many models predicting a let up in showers around the first week of July. The picture for north-west India, the country's premier paddy-producing region, looks gloomier with most weather forecasts predicting below-normal rains in the region this year. However, how far will...

-The Hindu Business Line Instructional videos made by, and for the agricultural community Treatment of paddy seeds and scientific application of fungicide in Odisha, the creation of an ‘Azolla’ mother pit in Andhra Pradesh, insights into mint cultivation in Uttar Pradesh, and natural remedies for diarrhoea in cattle in Karnataka. You learn about all these and more from the nearly 4,000 videos produced by Digital Green, a seven-year-old development venture that is...