Farmers advised to revert to traditional practices in farming to make it sustainable in future ANANTAPUR: Experts at a workshop on climate change and sustainable agriculture have opined that the Green Revolution has done more harm than good to the agriculture sector in the country from a long term perspective. They suggested the farmers to return to traditional practices in farming in order to make the vocation sustainable in future....

World leaders have mourned the sudden demise of Norman E Borlaug on 12 September, 2009 in Texas, United States. He was 95. He is remembered for his role in bringing green revolution technology that increased food production in ‘hunger’ belts of the world during the 1960s and 1970s. His contribution to India’s self-sufficiency in foodgrain production is well-known. It is his work that earned him the popular title of the...

With shift to a high-input cash cropping system, the debt process bears an uncanny resemblance to the ‘catastrophe’ If it does not rain over the next week, farmers of Petlawad tehsil and its neighbouring regions in Jhabua might have to go the same way as their brethren in Vidarbha did. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan recently declared Jhabua, along with 36 other districts, drought-hit. The agricultural apparatus in...

Agriculture is not just a food producing machine but the backbone of the livelihood of 60 per cent of Indians. The extensive drought spotlights a situation of mass rural deprivation and a mindset that is insensitive to it. But there are some encouraging signs. What should be done to meet the challenge?  There are reports in financial newspapers that the ongoing drought affecting nearly 200 districts in the country may...

KEY TRENDS   • Suicide by self-employed persons in agriculture as a percentage of total suicides at the national level stood at 15.6 percent in 1996, 16.3 percent in 2002, 14.4 percent in 2006, 13.7 percent in 2009, 11.9 percent in 2010, 10.3 percent in 2011, 11.4 percent in 2012 and 8.73 percent in 2013. Suicides committed in the farming sector (by farmers plus agricultural labourers) as a proportion of total suicides in India was 9.4 percent in...