-The Pioneer Earlier, due to poor electricity supply in Jharkhand, farmers were unable to store vegetables, thereby incurring losses. Now, with the introduction of ‘desi fridges' that do not require external energy, they can get themselves a better deal, writes Aakriti Shrivastava Sanjay Singh, a smallholder farmer is market savvy. He claims to produce the best quality vegetables in his village, Madanpur, in Jharkhand. He sells his vegetables in a nearby...

-The Indian Express New Delhi: Vegetables are the noble folk of food world, loved equally by doctors and grandmothers. Vegetarians live off them and meat-eaters are told to live off them. But in Delhi, under every crunchy leaf of radish or the shiny brinjal hide dangerous amounts of pesticides that can slowly kill, shows a new study by JNU. Pritha Chatterjee and Aniruddha Ghosal report how growers, consumers and the authorities may...

-The Hindu Business Line   BARC finds 91.77 ppm of the material in DAP; fertiliser industry says it can't be blamed When the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) found high levels of uranium in fertiliser and soil samples from the Malwa region of Punjab last week, activists in the area were not surprised. They have long been warning about environmental contamination due to excessive phosphate fertiliser use. Local reports indicated that BARC found uranium...

-The Economic Times NEW DELHI: A spell of rains that fell across north, northwest and central India since Friday is expected to boost planting of wheat, chick pea, mustard and oilseeds. The cool temperature, though has set in late, is beneficial for the standing wheat crop, but potato and other vegetable crops could suffer from cold and frost conditions. According to data from the agriculture ministry, total area covered under rabi...

-The Telegraph Calcutta: Private companies will be able to buy farm produce directly from farmers in Bengal. But the widely-anticipated whoop of exultation from Indian industry over the amendment in the state's agri-marketing act was somewhat muted because of the lack of clarity on the issue of contract farming and the absence of clear guidelines on whether the state government would provide incentives and help in the acquisition of land for private...