Agriculture is egocentric
Norman Uphoff, professor emeritus of government and international agriculture at Cornell University, US, likes to say that the system of rice …
G Nammalvar, messiah of organic revolution
G Nammalvar was one of a kind, a messiah of farmers who was revered as a saint-teacher by his followers. He was an agriculture scientist, a …
Shift grain bowl status from North to other regions of India
Balwinder Singh Sidhu, agriculture commissioner and chief conservator of soils in Punjab, is known for giving his opinion in a frank and …
Chhattisgarh will not allow GM crops
Chandrasekhar Sahu, agriculture minister of Chhattisgarh, is passionate about making farming a viable proposition for farmers. He has written …
Rising popularity of artificial vanilla puts Kerala farmers in distress
Vanilla is said to be the world's most popular flavour. As much as 40 per cent of the world's ice cream is vanilla flavoured. Its sweet, mildly …
Technology interventions that save water
It was early June. Jaspal Ram of Lehra Turkot in district Bathinda of Punjab was busy in his field putting gunny bags filled with mud on a plank …
'Poor nations need Codex education'
Sanjay Dave, director of the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA), was recently elected chairperson of …
Don't need subsidies, give us the right price
For most Indians, Mahendra Singh Tikait is the man who brought Delhi to its knees in 1988 with a rally that brought the national capital face to …
'They asked me to withdraw my court case'
P PARDHA SARADHI is tenacious. This mild-mannered professor at the Department of Environmental Studies at the University of Delhi (DU) has …
Saving rice
Rice is at the heart of a fierce strategy debate as the country prepares to launch the second Green Revolution in the eastern states. …
The precarious geopolitics of phosphorous
Both nitrogen and phosphorous are essential to life. Lynchpins both to global food production, circulating through synthesis or export and then …
Linkage between science and public policy has weakened
M S Swaminathan, popularly known as the father of India’s Green Revolution, has been associated with national agricultural research system (…
GEAC has power only to withdraw permission
Arjula R Reddy, a plant geneticist, was appointed co-chairperson of the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) in 2009. At present, he …
Science under siege
Agricultural science has ossified in India. Despite a vast network of public research institutions and agriculture universities across the country,…
Organic thread
Even as Bt cotton invaded Indian fields in the past few years, some farmer groups kept pushing for organic cotton. In 2009-10, production in …
Andhra's groundwater crisis & a trail of suicides
Groundwater has failed Andhra Pradesh’s farmers. Between 1997 and 2006, about 4,500 farmers committed suicide, unable to repay loans they …
Forest conservation is too complex an issue to be resolved by executive fiat
The condition of India's forest and her forest dwellers is extremely grave. A fresh round of police attacks on tribal people -- four dead in Dewas,…
GM crop benefits are all in future
Nearly 40 years ago, Marc Van Montagu of Ghent University in Belgium, along with fellow researcher Jeff Schell, discovered that Agrobacterium …
Whose budget is it, Mr Jaitley?
Being the first full year budget of the National Democratic Alliance government, there was expectation that the finance minister's announcements …
Private sector is profiting from vacuum left by ICAR
In the agriculture research hierarchy, Swapan Kumar Datta occupies the second rung, one of eight deputy director generals (DDGs) in the Indian …
A plant breeder comes into his own
Awards are finally coming to K Vinod Prabhu, 54, a plant breeder, for his work on building resistance in wheat, mustard and rice through the …
‘Stopping GM trials is anti-farmer’
Genetically modified (GM) mustard hybrid DMH-11 developed by Delhi University’s Centre for Genetic Manipulation of Crop Plants ran into …
Back To Beginning
Afghanistan, the badland of international politics, faces its toughest challenge: life and peace. Two decades of war, six months of non-stop …
Veggies delight
The rising demand for vegetables has opened up a money-making opportunity for small farmers. Already reeling from recurring droughts and …
Lost in plantation
Millions of growers and workers are in distress in Kerala, the plantation capital of India, as domestic and international prices of cash crops …