Climate change is springing an unpleasant surprise on agriculture in India, catching both farmers and governments unprepared. The erratic and deficit rainfall pattern and rise in temperature in recent years has even forced farmers to change cropping patterns and several areas have been declared drought-hit.Agricultural scientists acknowledge that even a mere one degree increase in average day temperature would adversely impact production of both wheat and rice crops (total annual...

India is likely to harvest a record 16.5 million tonne pulses this year. This was announced by the Agriculture Minister, Shri Sharad Pawar, at the 6th Agriwatch Global Pulses Summit here today. The Minister said that though India presently imports a large quantity of pulses, the use of new production technologies and agronomic practices, and government support will lead to self sufficiency. Shri Pawar said that more aggressive promotion of available technologies...

India's oilseeds production dipped to 249.3 lakh tonnes in the crop year 2009-10, compared to 277.2 lakh tonnes in the previous year, Parliament was informed today. The country had produced 297.6 lakh tonnes of oilseeds in 2007-8, Minister of State for Agriculture K V Thomas said in a written reply in Lok Sabha. As a result of the fall in oilseeds production, the minister said, India has been facing shortage of edible...

For past several weeks, thousands of farmers in Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Chhatisgarh, Rajasthan, Bihar and Jharkhand have been left in the lurch. They had planted urd and til crops in a large acreage, and to their dismay no grain formation took place in the standing crop. Unable to bear the economic loss, at least four farmers have reportedly committed suicide. Thousands of farmers have been pushed deeper into economic distress....

A target to distribute 1,00,848 quintals of seed has been fixed for the rabi crop in 2010-11, district magistrate Sanjay Prasad said. The target for urea has been fixed to 95,000 metric tonnes while the availability is 32,977 metric tonnes. Similarly, target for DAP is 33,000 metric tonnes while availability is 32,088 metric tonnes. He informed that awareness is being created regarding use of zinc sulphate for the wheat crop....