CEOs need to accelerate their action plans to safeguard the production of commodities critical to the global population and economy as heat stress and drought risk rise around the world, according to PwC's report, Climate Risks to Nine Key Commodities: Protecting People and Prosperity, published. The report, which analysed nine …
Laxma Jarpula, farmer, hasn’t met agriculture scientists who say India’s food security and agricultural production rely heavily on pesticides. Three years ago, he decided to risk his cotton crop with pests, rather than pesticides. “I’d put the insects in the pesticides, and they wouldn’t die. The more pesticide I used, …
continuous submerged paddy cultivation doesn't harm soil as believed. Rather, it improves fertility as compared to other agricultural systems, claims a study by researchers from Hyderabad-based International Crop Research Institute for Semi Arid Tropics (icrisat) and the National Bureau of Soil Survey and Land Use Pattern, Nagpur. The study found …
At present the average daily turnover of 23 commodity exchanges put together barely crosses Rs 8,000-9,000 crore. Of this the share of fine cereal grains (wheat and rice) is insignificant, ranging below Rs 30 crore per day. The entry of Food Corporation of India (fci) can increase its volume 20 …
Irrigation water security is vital both for livelihood and food security. While the country has made large investments in the augmentation of water supply, there have been no commensurate efforts in the management of demand and in the promotion of efficient and economic water use. This report draws attention to …
It's not every day that an innocuous email from a geophysicist leads you to a prime ministerial residence that is big time real estate. And we aren't talking 7 Race Course Road. I had to check out the villages of Prini and Jagatsukh near Manali, Himachal Pradesh, which had complaints …
Vast stretches of water-logged, fallow fields, blocked from the backwaters by low mud-and-rock boundary walls. Patches of golden brown rice crops partially submerged in the waters, surrounded by acres of tall kuthiraval weeds. Four women keeled over in waist-deep water, cutting rice stalks; a man pushing a small rowboat with …
On September 15, 2005 representatives of Syngenta disclosed to Down To Earth the company's plans to patent a few thousand gene sequences of the rice (Oryza sativa) genome. Further investigations revealed that the world's third largest seed company has filed at least 15 applications to secure patents over the rice …
the eu recently asked for a dna test to prove the authenticity of Basmati rice and avoid the confusion created by inauthentic imports. India and the eu have agreed to work on a common dna test protocol to ensure the genuineness of the rice variety. In the recent past, the …
The tropical monsoon rhythm for over centuries obviously occasioned the development of water works which facilitated wet rice cultivation in pre-modern Southeast Asia. The small-scale water works, purely an outcome of local initiative which survived for many centuries and outlived the state, were developed in the dry zone of Irrawaddy …
scientists from the University of Hyderabad have mapped the drought-tolerant genes in the indica sub-species of rice. "Though such work has been done earlier for japonica rice, it was irrelevant for India where most rice varieties belong to the indica sub-species,' says Ajay Parida, programme director, biotechnology with Chennai-based M …
India rules the global scented rice trade through basmati. But in the last 15 years, the area under its cultivation has remained at 0.5-0.6 million hectares. Production has stagnated at one to 1.5 million tonnes. This is because this scented rice variety can’t be grown beyond stipulated tracts in Haryana, …
Major aromatic non-basmati rices in some regions of Uttar Pradesh and Uttaranchal, whose germplasm is lost forever: Tarai: Ramjawain, Dhaniaya, Kanakjeer, Bhataphool, Duniapat (Type-9), Rambhog, Vishnuparag, Selhi, Dulhaniya, Benibhog Ganga Basin: Moongphali, Tulsimanjari, Tulsi Pasand, Adamchini, Kesar, Laungchoor Vindhya: Phool Chameli, Dubraj. People still remember such varieties and even the …
Kalanamak grains were found in excavations at Aligarhwa (district Siddharthnagar, Uttar Pradesh, India). Aligarhwa has been identified as the real Kapilvastu, the kingdom of King Suddhodhan, which means
This story reminds one of the Hollywood blockbuster of the 1960s that changed the way many people looked at birds. Gigantic flocks of the quela quela (Quelea quelea) bird have attacked rice and maize fields in Nigeria's northern states of Zamfara and Yobe, bordering Niger on the south of the …
Without Rubu Bukur, I am completely lost. Two rows of eerily quiet houses snake along both sides of a dusty road. This is Lempia village in the Apatani valley of Arunachal Pradesh. Over the next few days, Bukur will become my interpreter and guide to the valley. But today, my …
What are the new challenges for scientists who research on rice? We don't have much water for agriculture today. So, we have to produce more rice using less water. Then, agriculturists have also diversified into other crops, so we need rice varieties that take up less land. There are also …
On 7th April 2005, the Kerala High Court permitted Hindustan Coca-Cola Limited (Coke) to draw 5 lakh litres of water a day at its humungous bottling plant at Plachimada in Kerala's Palakkad district. This reversal to status quo means that the cola multinational (mnc) can now continue the activities that …
japanese scientists have developed a high-yielding rice plant that's also less prone to toppling over in bad weather. What is unique about the new cultivar is that it uses information from the rice genome published earlier this year. The team of researchers at the Nagoya University initially took two varieties
