-The New Indian Express KOCHI: At a time when the state government is harping on food security, the cropped area of all food crops, including cereals, tubers, pulses, fruits and vegetables, covers only 11.03% of the total cultivated area, according to a new report. The production of pulses is another area of concern. The pulses production in the state actually declined to 1,922.94 tonnes in 2020-21 from 2,183 tonnes in 2019-20, wrote...

-Gaon Connection Under Uttar Pradesh State Rural Livelihood Mission, TRIF is training rural residents to make compost within 18 days using the Berkeley method. Women are using this compost to grow a variety of vegetables. Seema's one acre farmland is lush green even in peak summer season with a range of organic vegetables growing on it. It's been over nine months that the 33-year-old community worker from Urra village in Mihinpurwa block...

-United Nations News Countries are expected to spend a staggering $1.8 trillion importing food they need this year; this would be a new world record but worryingly, it’s going to buy them less food, not more. That’s according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) which on Thursday suggested that for some countries, the situation potentially heralded “an end of their resilience to higher prices”. Ever-higher fixed costs for farmers of so-called...

-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...

-Hindustan Times Unseasonal rains also damaged lemon crops during the flowering stage in several states in January and then, a heatwave while March-April harvesting crimped output. In April, prices leapt to unseen levels, reaching up to ₹200 a kilo. New Delhi: Extreme weather that scientists have linked to climate change has hit output of several crops this year, making fruits and vegetables costlier. The average retail price of tomatoes, a basic ingredient of...