The rally members will highlight farmers' insecuritiesKisan Swaraj Yatra (rally for farmers' sovereignty), a conglomeration of farmers' organisations, consumers and civil society groups, is to make a presentation on the agriculture crisis to the National Advisory Council (NAC). They seek a Farmers' Income Commission and a social security legislation for farmers.Representatives of the Yatra, who met NAC chairperson Sonia Gandhi here on Saturday to highlight the income insecurity of farmers,...

Farmers in Madhya Pradesh have demanded a subsidy for practising eco-friendly measures to tackle India's soil degradation crisis, environmental group Greenpeace India said Saturday. The farmers held a public hearing in this Madhya Pradesh town to review the major soil health management support systems of the central government and its capability to solve the soil degradation crisis. Several agriculture experts, government officials, politicians and representatives of civil society attended the hearing held...

Ample monsoon rains and higher prices of farm goods are likely to lift Indian fertiliser demand in 2010/11 by 13 percent to a record 60 million tonnes, testing local fertiliser makers' ability to raise output in sync with the demand, industry officials said. India's June-Sept monsoon rains, a key factor in determining food grain production and fertiliser demand in the country, were 2 percent above normal in the current year, weather office data showed....

ven as the state Agriculture Department maintains that it has a draft organic farming policy ready that might be implemented soon, farmers don’t seem to have high hopes from a policy that is being formulated for five years now. Director, horticulture department, DG Bakwad, said, “We cannot give a definite date for the implementation of the policy as certain procedural matters may take time. We are ready with the draft policy...

With a gas-guzzler of an economy, India had been spending tens of billions of dollars annually to import petroleum. And so its 2009 policy on biofuels mandated that by 2017, India would have enough biofuel production to cover at least 20 percent of the country’s oil consumption. The government has in fact been encouraging the cultivation of jatropha curcas for the past seven years, believing that would be the fastest way...