High-velocity winds accompanied by hailstorm and an incessant spell of rain for a couple of hours last night damaged the almost ripened wheat crop in villages across Patiala and surrounding areas. With farmers demanding a special girdwari, the administration may write to the government to look into their losses and order payment of adequate compensation. Reports reaching the district headquarters said that the hailstorm had flattened standing wheat crop in numerous...
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Indian wheat not effected by stem rust fungal disease
India is free from the deadly stem rust fungal disease in wheat which destroyed swathes of the staple foodgrain crop in Africa and other parts of the world, Parliament was informed today. "Wheat varieties grown in India are resistant to most of the Indian races of stem rust. Several varieties are also resistant to the new race (Ug99) of stem rust as per testing carried out in Kenya and Ethiopia,"...
More »Surge in Food Insecurity by J George
Every passing day makes it clear that the proposed food security law may not come by for a while. One report quoting the Planning Commission even suggested that it can be expected only in 2012. This Twelfth Plan (2012-17) launch has support from the concerned dual Ministry of Agriculture as well as Food, Consumer Affairs and Public Distribution. In that eventuality it does mean a surge in food insecurity.A dispassionate...
More »Volatile wheat prices are as much a cause for alarm as are high prices
FEW rural pleasures match seeing a golden field of grain, rustling and ripe for reaping. But the harvest season in the northern hemisphere is being marked by turmoil on global wheat markets. A big reason is to be found in one of the world’s largest wheat exporters, Russia. Hit by fires and drought which have wiped out a third of the grain crop, the authorities there have banned exports, first temporarily...
More »Rust in the bread basket
A crop-killing fungus is spreading out of Africa towards the world’s great wheat-growing areas IT IS sometimes called the “polio of agriculture”: a terrifying but almost forgotten disease. wheat rust is not just back after a 50-year absence, but spreading in new and scary forms. In some ways it is worse than child-crippling polio, still lingering in parts of Nigeria. wheat rust has spread silently and speedily by 5,000 miles in...
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