-The Hindu Business Line Mumbai: The cotton crop in Maharashtra is facing whiteflies attacks and if enough attention is not provided by the State Government then the problem could aggravate and cause significant economic damage, senior Maharashtra Government officials told BusinessLine. Changes in weather and higher moisture content in the air coupled with the use of synthetic Pyrethroids for killing pink bollworms has lead to the ingress of whiteflies, such pesticides act...

-Down to Earth Even as studies point out the use of these pesticides in food commodities, coordination gaps between concerned deparments have not been addressed In a scheme for monitoring pesticide residues in food commodities, the Ministry of Agriculture has found that 12.5 per cent of samples analysed contained non-approved pesticides. The 2014-15 annual report of the ministry's Department of Agriculture, Cooperation and Farmers Welfare contains data related to use of pesticides,...

-The Hindustan Times   The government is planning a "grow safe food campaign" that could entail new policy initiatives on pesticide use and an awareness drive among farmers in the wake of a study that shows at least 2% of commonly consumed fruits and vegetables could be poisonous. The government-sponsored study, ‘Monitoring of Pesticide Residues at National Level', continuously tracked pesticide use between April 2009 and March 2013 for possible presence of organo-chlorine,...