-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 Hindu Business Line     A set of technologies that deals with production and marketing constraints can work wonders Indian agriculture faces herculean challenges today; yet, the near- and the medium-term outlook on agriculture and agri-businesses seem bright. Growing urbanisation and changing food habits, malnutrition plus declining areas under foodgrain pose a big threat to food security. Agriculture and food production are strongly influenced by international trade, credit availability, development co-operation, climate change and environmental...

-The Telegraph   The European Union has banned the import of Indian mangoes as they failed to pass its stringent biosecurity regulations. Does India too need tougher biosecurity laws to protect its crops from pests and diseases? When a few pesky fruit flies tried to migrate from India, they ended up sparking a debate on the effectiveness of India's agricultural biosecurity laws and regulations. While some agriculture experts believe the laws are...

-DNA   Workshop showcases benefit of SRI technique that requires less water and input, but provides better yield Ahmedabad: Paddy cultivators in Navsari and Dangs reap fortune in their fields with the new system of rice intensification (SRI), a methodology of crop cultivation has yielded rich dividends. Experts who spoke about the unique technique compared it with other techniques that require a initial high input cost, and said this method of cultivation on...

-The Hindu   Rice, a major crop in Andhra Pradesh, is cultivated using water from borewells, tanks or open wells. Since the crop grows in standing water ground water depletion is usually high especially during summer. In addition to the water shortage, non-availability of labour on time is also increasing the cost of production, forcing farmers to give up rice cultivation citing low productivity and high labour costs as reasons. Different approach A different look...