-Down to Earth Scanty rainfall, heat up to 48°C mar paddy prospects    Punjab has been able to bring only 77,000 hectares (ha) under direct-seeded rice (DSR) through June 30 this year, way below the 1.2 million ha (mha) it targetted. This is also substantially less than last year’s 0.6 mha and 0.5 mha in 2020. High temperatures and deficient rainfall are mainly to blame, said farmers. Other challenges included closed canals, erratic...

-Newsclick.in Farmlands have developed cracks and paddy saplings are either drying up or turning yellow. Patna: Kamlesh Yadav and Dhirendra Singh are among hundreds of thousands of farmers in Bihar who are uncertain about paddy sowing during the Kharif season due to poor monsoon. “June-end is the best time for paddy transplantation but our farmlands are dry due to poor monsoon. We expected good rainfall like last year and before when heavy rains...

-The Hindu A multinational study including NIMS nephrologist concludes the finding Hyderabad: Farmers and daily wage labourers working in burned sugarcane could be at the risk of developing Chronic Kidney Disease of unknown etiology (CKDu). A multinational original research article, including a nephrologist from Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS) in Telangana, India, has concluded that ‘human exposure to amorphous silica nanoparticles found in burned  sugarcane fields could have a participatory role...

-Gaon Connection Birsa Harit Gram Yojana, launched in 2020 as a rural employment scheme, in convergence with the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, is providing double benefits to farmers who are cultivating their fallow lands and also earning wages. Barabanki (East Singhbhum), Jharkhand: For a large part of the year, 51-year-old Laxmi Narayan Singh's three acre plot of land used to remain fallow. He and his 46-year-old wife Savita Singh...

-Down to Earth Low returns and high risks from alternative crops among reasons past efforts failed, says report The Commission for Agricultural Cost and Prices (CACP) has recommended promotion of crop diversification, favouring oilseed crops amid the global inflation in oilseeds and vegetable oils prices. Global inflation creates a structural risk as vegetable oils account for about half of India’s agricultural import, subsequently raising the country’s agri-import bill, the commission wrote in its...