The unbridled manufacture and use of pesticides in Asia is raising the spectre of "pest storms" devastating the region's rice farms and threatening food security, scientists have warned. Increased production of cheap pesticides in China and India, lax regulation and inadequate farmer education are destroying ecosystems around paddies, allowing pests to thrive and multiply, they said. The problem has emerged over the last decade and -- if left unchecked -- pests could...

Activists hope that a popular agitation against the setting up of a factory to manufacture asbestos products in the eastern Bihar state will result in a nationwide ban on the large-scale import into this country of the deadly mineral fibre. Following six months of agitation against the setting up of the factory in the Chainpur-Bishunpur area of Bihar’s Muzzaffarpur district, state chief minister Nitish Kumar sought to lay blame on the...

PMFAI claims imported substitutes will cost the Indian farmers dearly Chemicals are the world's second largest traded commodity ‘India has a 70% market share of endosulfan business globally' The Pesticides Manufacturers and Formulators' Association of India (PMFAI), on the radar of some environmentalists and business lobbies, on Friday demanded the Central government to withdraw the “erroneous” report of the Ahmedabad-based National Institute of Occupational Health (NIOH) declaring endosulfan as a health hazard. Describing the...

Famously known as the seed crusader' of UP, Prakash Singh Raghuvanshi has developed over 100 species of indigenous seeds of wheat, paddy and other edible items that are compatible to the country's weather. While talking about his mission of conventional seed conservation, at a meeting in Sambalpur on Sunday he said, "Through my 15 years experience I have developed several species of indigenous seeds that are giving high yielding in...

These days, Jhum cultivation also known as ‘slash and burn method of cultivation’, ‘shifting cultivation’ etc has been under continuous scanner for its productivity and ecological viability. This form of cultivation is followed widely in almost all the North Eastern States including the hill areas of Manipur. There are those who consider jhum cultivation as unproductive and ecologically disastrous so that people (understood as tribal people of the hill areas)...