-The Telegraph   Paddy may not be the climate culprit that the world is making it out to be Agricultural scientist Pratap Bhattacharyya may have found a remarkable piece of evidence that absolves swathes of paddy fields stretching over millions of hectares of a climate crime. On the contrary, he believes that rice is doing its bit for the environment. A study by Bhattacharyya and his colleagues at the Cuttack-based Central Rice Research Institute...

-Down to Earth   People of West Bengal's Sunderbans region are setting up grain banks to safeguard against food crisis Subedan Bibi's mud hut is a few metres from the banks of the Bakchara river, a distributary of the Hugli in Sunderbans region of South 24 Parganas. When the river is in spate she and most others of Goyadham village move to the main market in the nearby block. "Floods and storms destroy...

-The Hindu     Farmer plans to set up a farm showcasing 250 varieties Mysore: Known to conserve indigenous varieties of rice from different parts of the country, S.R. Srinivasmurthy, paddy cultivator from T. Narsipura in Mysore district, has augmented his rich collection in recent years and plans to set up a demonstration farm this season. The demonstration farm will feature about 250 rice varieties, collected by him over the years. A "farmer by accident", who...

-The Hindu     Paddy cultivation is no longer lucrative in Kanyakumari district Kanyakumari: The fertile rice bowl of erstwhile Travancore, now part of Tamil Nadu's Kanyakumari district, is gripped by a serious economic and ecological crisis. The emerald green paddy fields, banana and coconut groves in the backdrop of the Western Ghats, and irrigated by hundreds of water bodies may soon fade into a neglected prized painting, if urgent measures are not taken, warn...

-The Hindu Chennai: For the past two months, farmers of five blocks in Tiruvallur have been working hard to double the output of pulses in the district. The farmers of Minjur, Cholavaram, Gummidipoondi, Ellapuram and Tiruvallur blocks have brought more land under rice fallow-crop cultivation. In this method, seeds of pulses, including green gram, are sown a few days before the paddy harvest and the seeds germinate due to the little moisture...