-PTI     TIRUCHIRAPALLI: In an effort to use human urine as fertiliser, efforts to set up the country's first Human Urine Bank have been initiated at Musiri, about 35 km from here. The initiative, a joint effort of the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi and Society for Community Organisation and People's Education (SCOPE), Musiri, was launched to help extraction of Struvite from urine. Struvite is a phosphate mineral that can be...

-PTI   All major agrarian states are facing shortage of farm labourers due to factors like implementation of NREGA and migration of labours to urban areas for better job prospects, Parliament was informed today. "All major Agricultural producing states where rural employment generation programmes are being implemented are facing this problem (labour shortage)," Minister of State for Agriculture Harish Rawat said in a written reply to Lok Sabha. Factors such as implementation of Mahatma...

The Seed Bill 2010 -- which stayed in controversy because its initial draft seemed to favour agri-business rather than the farmer -- is now ready to get debated and passed in the current session of Parliament. Despite consultations, first in a Parliamentary Standing Committee and later in an all party meeting, a large number of farmers’ unions, opposition parties and civil society groups believe that the Bill fails to protect...

The development of Bt brinjal was a case of bio-piracy, according to the National Biodiversity Authority (NBA). According to sources, the NBA has finally concluded its year-long investigation and recommended action against the U.S. agri-business giant Monsanto and its Indian collaborators who developed and promoted the controversial, genetically modified vegetable. A decision to “take the case to its logical conclusion” was taken at an NBA meeting on June 20, according to...

Reforms in the supply-chain system can help India tackle the demand-supply mismatch in essential food items Food inflation may have dropped to single digit but since that fall is set against last year’s elevated double-digit base, it continues to hurt the poor — 65 per cent of their disposable income goes towards food. The government often defends its failure to tame inflation by arguing that it has no magic wand to...