-The Indian Express The result in the Kairana Lok Sabha seat bypoll, where ganna payment was the main issue, brought forth a crisis born of advances in plant breeding and boost in sugarcane production. Not many would have heard of Bakshi Ram. Currently director of the Sugarcane Breeding Institute (SBI) at Coimbatore, he isn’t as well-known as Norman Borlaug or M S Swaminathan. Yet, the wonder sugarcane variety, Co-0238, bred by...

-Financial Express Loan waivers adversely affect marginal farmers due to a reduction of formal credit channels given to them On the eve of the Karnataka election, waivers of farm loans were one of the major election promises. Now, chief minister HD Kumaraswamy wants to fulfill his pre-poll promise and even threatened to resign if he cannot fulfill his promise. As has been seen time and time again, “farmers first” provides political mileage....

-The Hindu Anand Joshi, a rural development fellow under CM’s programme, helped bring State Transport buses, and electricity after 70 years to a remote village in Amravati Mumbai: Anand Joshi (26), an MBA from MIT, Pune open university is reverently referred to as khambewala saab in Bulumgavan village in Amravati district. He finds the tag both daunting and amusing: “They call me that because of the electric poles that stand in their...

-Frontline.in The women-led climate-resilient farming model created by Swayam Shikshan Prayog in drought-hit Marathwada has Yielded encouraging results and is worthy of emulation across the country. “LOOK at our quinoa. It has grown so well,” says a beaming Shailaja Narwade from Masia village near Solapur in interior Maharashtra. Shailaja has planted the traditional South American plant not for consumption but in order to harvest its seeds. “Quinoa seeds are very valuable...

-The Times of India MUMBAI: In a glaring case of apathy, ailing self-trained farm innovator Dadaji Khobragade (80), who revolutionized paddy farming by developing the high Yielding variety of rice called HMT, is struggling to meet his medical expenses. His family has been forced to make a public appeal for donations for just Rs 2 lakh to pay for his hospitalisation. Khobragade, who hails from Nanded village in Nagbid tehsil of eastern...