PUNE/ KOLKATA: Heavy rains lashed Mumbai and parched fields in peninsular India as the monsoon resumed its journey after an agonising 11-day interruption, but the unforeseen 41% rain deficit this month has taken its toll, with vegetable prices rising sharply for the third straight month. The monsoon, almost stagnant since June 6, touched southern parts of Gujarat and Chhattisgarh on Sunday. It is forecast to gain momentum in the next three...
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Foreign farms in Africa bring investment and controversy
-AFP JOHANNESBURG: Foreign farms are spreading across Africa to grow food and biofuels for global markets, bringing much-needed investments but also new troubles for a continent struggling to feed itself. China, Malaysia, Singapore and Bangladesh are just some of the countries spending billions of dollars in what critics have dubbed a new "scramble for Africa", a reference to Europe's 19th century colonisation drive. But Africa holds an estimated 60 percent of the world's...
More »16-53% increase in kharif MSP by govt may stoke food inflation
-The Economic Times The government has increased the minimum support price (MSP) for the kharif season in a range of 16% to 53% to motivate farmers and compensate for higher input costs but the higher purchase prices could stoke food inflation further. The Committee on Economic Affairs ( CCEA) on Thursday raised the MSP of paddy by Rs 170 per quintal and those of oilseeds like groundnut, sunflower seed and niger seed...
More »A ban on the use of crops with transgenic traits is unscientific and India needs new technologies to raise farm yields-Deepak Pental
Science and technology hold the key to developing low-input, high-output agriculture. The challenge is to use new technologies creatively and to make evidence-based decisions on the deployment of new technologies. Crop breeding is carried out to meet two broad objectives: one, to increase yields of a crop per se and, two, to protect the yield potential by developing crops resistant to diseases, pests and environmental extremes. Both yield-enhancement and yield-stabilisation are...
More »Israeli wins World Food Prize by Narayan Lakshman
-The Hindu Dr. Hillel has pioneered a method of bringing water to crops in arid land regions While leading nations of the world are engaged in conflicts over the entire range of physical resources, from rare earth minerals to oil, this week the U.S. recognised the importance of a resource that matters much more to the vast numbers of the poor the world over — water. It was recognition of the importance of...
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