-The Hindu Agriculture Department getting more and more enquiries Tiruchirapalli (TIRUCHI): There have been days when Mohan Kumaramangalam (51), a marginal farmer in Kalaththil Ventrar Pettai in Lalgudi taluk, seriously considered giving up farming because of acute shortage of workers. But he has had a change of mind after he acquired a Paddy Transplanter which helped him overcome shortage of workers. Although he had acquired the motorised but hand-held imported transplanter for his...

-The Indian Express The machines failed to click with farmers after the state government imported around 650 such machines from China and Japan and supplied them to the farmers on subsidy. Ludhiana: Paddy transplantation is on in full swing in the state and back in action this season are the forgotten transplanters. The machines failed to click with farmers after the state government imported around 650 such machines from China and Japan and...

-The Hindu Tirupur (Tamil Nadu): A group of self-help group women from Kerala is showing the way in mechanised paddy transplantation which was now initiated for the first time in a commercial way in Tirupur district this season. Expertise of members of Haritha Vanitha Labour Bank, a women self-help group at Kollangode in Palakkad district, who were trained in mechanised paddy transplantation and harvest techniques by the Kerala Government, are called...

-The Hindu Kochi: The task of mechanising agriculture operations in the marshy fields of coastal Kerala will soon become a reality. As part of its efforts to revive the traditional practice of Pokkali farming, the Kerala Agriculture University has developed a machine that enables mechanised transplantation of paddy seedlings in Pokkali fields. Along with this, the varsity has also developed a combined harvester for Pokkali fields, which is being fine-tuned after on-field...

-The Business Standard   How a law to conserve groundwater led to a better paid and better organised migrant workforce Ludhiana: For some years now, Punjab's fields have lain fallow through the searing dry heat of May; but come June's steamy humidity, small bands of lithe, slender men from Bihar fan out across the waterlogged paddy fields, transplanting rice saplings with fluid efficiency. Bihar's paddy planters have frequented Punjab since the 1960s when rice...