The legacy of Industrial Agriculture With the world population passing the 6 billion mark last October, the debate over our ability to sustain a fast growing population is heating up. Biotechnology advocates in particular are becoming very vocal in their claim that there is no alternative to using genetically modified crops in agriculture if "we want to feed the world". Actually, that quote might be true. It depends what they mean...

Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today urged state farmers to switch over to organic agriculture to prevent further contamination of underground water sources with pesticides. He was addressing farmers at sangat darshan programmes in several villages of Muktsar. He also released funds for the development of the villages. He urged farmers to opt for cash crops that would not only result in their prosperity but would also help to improve water...

Monsoon rains, which have entered the key soybean-growing areas, are likely to be weak in the next three days, weather officials said on Monday. But industry officials said sowing of soybean, the main summer-planted oilseed, would not be hit due to good soil moisture after recent pre-monsoon showers in the region. Weather officials said rains are likely to gather momentum from 25 June. “We expect monsoon flow to strengthen over central India from...

Food inflation rose to 16.55% for the week ended May 22 on account of high prices of pulses, fruits and vegetables. Inflation increased by 0.32 percentage point from 16.23% in the previous week. The uptick was mainly due to a 7% increase in fish marine prices, 5% rise in prices of Poultry chicken, 2% in prices of barley and masur each and one% increase in prices for fruits and vegetables....

The agriculture ministry’s revised farm output projections for this year, indicating just about a 7.5 per cent downturn in foodgrain production despite the worst drought in recent years, lend themselves to some significant inferences. For one, the performance of the crops has turned out to be far better than what was feared. The earlier projections, released in November last, had put the likely crop loss at over 21 million tonnes,...