-The Hindu Khammam (Andhra Pradesh): Efforts by Association for Social and Humanise Action (ASHA), a Chintur-based NGO, to conserve the local varieties of traditional crops and promote community-based sustainable agricultural practices has earned the appreciation of the Andhra Pradesh State Bio-diversity Board (APSBB). ASHA has been engaged in efforts to conserve the local varieties of food crops such as paddy and millets by organising awareness programmes in collaboration with reputed organisations such...

-The Hindu   Horticulture Department is doing a survey on the crop in the State Karnataka: The Horticulture Department has begun a comprehensive survey of the jackfruit crop to set the stage to promote its cultivation in a big way in the State. Jackfruit cultivation is suitable for Karnataka because of the presence of large tracts of drought-prone land. Horticulture Director D.L. Maheshwar disclosed this at the inaugural session of a two-day international symposium...

-The Hindu Environmental activist Vandana Shiva says the real motives behind GMOs are the patents and royalties that come with it Two things happened in 1984, begins environmental activist Vandana Shiva. One was Operation Blue star and the second, the riots following the assassination of the Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. "Something happened before Operation Blue Star and that story doesn't get told, that is the story of the Green Revolution," said Shiva,...

-The Guardian Rice conservationist Debal Deb grapples with 'mindless Indian elite' to reintroduce genetically diverse, drought-tolerant varieties   Fifty years ago, every Indian village would probably have grown a dozen or more rice varieties that grew nowhere else. Passed down from generation to generation and family to family, there would have been a local variety for every soil and taste - rice that would grow well in droughts or deep floods, which had...

-The Financial Express The urgent need to end world hunger appears to have promoted superfood crops at the expense of nutritional diversity Finally, we know why India is facing a spurt in diet-linked lifestyle disorders while it continues to struggle to feed the hungry. The paradox is seen in several developing economies, the answer is easily hazarded but now, for the first time, a formal study by the International Centre for Tropical...