-The Economic Times CHANDIGARH: Cotton output in India is likely to drop by up to 15 per cent this year due to insufficient rain and pest attack in two cotton-growing regions of the country. In Gujarat, a major cotton-producing state, the crop has been hit by weak rainfall after a good sowing period, when the monsoon was strong. Rainfall in the region has been patchy and 28 per cent below normal. Farmers...

-The Hindu Business Line A valuable account of how holistic, small-farmer based Agriculture can show the way MS Swaminathan is well known as the key architect of India’s Green Revolution in the mid-1960s and an all-time crusader against hunger and food insecurity. His latest book, entitled Combating Hunger and Achieving Food Security, broadly shows the road map for a hunger-free and food-secure India. The book has 30 chapters, each suggesting some sweet...

-The Hindu The mainstay crops of groundnut and cotton are in a precarious position. Ahmedabad: A month-long dry spell in Gujarat has farmers and the government worried as the State is now possibly staring at a drought with the monsoon deficit widening. The State received heavy rain in June and July, leading to floods in Saurashtra and North Gujarat, which killed over 100 people and thousands of animals. “There was not a single...

-Livemint.com Water availability has not deteriorated only because of the poor monsoon Amartya Sen showed in his seminal work on famines that mass starvation is not necessarily the result of inadequate food supply. He opened up new areas of inquiry that focussed on what have come to be known as entitlement failures. Sen has famously argued that human mistakes forced people into starvation in Bengal in 1943 even though food production in...

-Business Standard Monsoon starts withdrawing from northwest, complicating projections for kharif output Monsoon has started withdrawing from the northwestern region of the country, India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Friday. “The southwest monsoon has withdrawn from western parts of Rajasthan,” the department said. The conditions are favourable for further withdrawal of the monsoon from northwest India in the next three-four days, it added. According to economists, it is too early to predict the impact...