The battle over genetically modified brinjal may resume shortly as an environment ministry agency readies its ammunition against arguments that the vegetable, the introduction of which has been halted by a government moratorium, threatens biodiversity and is unsafe for human consumption. The Genetic Engineering Approval Committee (GEAC) will be going up against environment minister Jairam Ramesh, who was responsible for the decision to suspend cultivation of Bt brinjal after the panel...

A meticulously researched book by A. Vaidyanathan, Agricultural Growth in India: Role of Technology, Incentives and Institutions, is an illuminating scholarly work. Thinking about it one realizes the dismal and declining state of Indian agriculture and the poor governance at both Central and state government levels that has brought it to this sorry pass. A valuable compendium of data and analysis of Indian agriculture since Independence, it is a valuable...

A big push to develop agriculture in the poorest countries is needed if the world is to feed itself in future decades, a report warns. With the world's population soaring to nine billion by mid-century, crop yields must rise, say the authors - yet climate change threatens to slash them. Already the number of chronically hungry people is above one billion. The report was prepared for a major conference on farming...

Saying that the biotech bill is all 'wrong and retrogressive', Communist Party of India (CPI) leader D. Raja has written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh cautioning him not to introduce the 'draconian' bill in parliament. In the letter dated March 11, of which IANS has a copy, the party's national secretary vehemently criticised the bill's main proposal to set up the Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India (BRAI) under the ambit of...

Indian farmers are known to be second to none when it comes to adoption of new technology. But, what is not so well-appreciated is that many of them are daring enough to take a break from traditional crops and venture into wholly new fields and make a success of it through their own ingenuity or with some institutional or state help. There are countless instances of such endeavours. The agriculture ministry...