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 …
It is ironic that while India ranks third in fertiliser use worldwide, it ranks 14 and 16 respectively in the production of rice and wheat. It is even more ironic that India’s fertiliser policy ensures precisely such a result. Fertiliser use in India is dictated by the larger perceived need …
Agricultural growth in India has always laboured under the burden of producing more. The idea was: grow only foodgrains. That meant: not ecologically adapted cereals such as millets, but rice and wheat. The green revolution programme was single-minded: it came up with hyv (high-yielding variety) seeds for rice and wheat …
A third factor has led to the current debility of soils in India: irrigation. That is to say, water over-use. To feed the rice-wheat mentality, net irrigated area rose from 20.8 million ha in 1950 to 53.5 million ha in 1995-1996. Fed on irrigation, the agricultural area grew from a …
Soils are a very slow renewable resource. To reclaim them requires, above all, a long-term plan. With falling productivity, the realisation has sunk in that soils cannot be blindly mined, and that humans cannot just plough through the ecology they interact with. apply gypsum: Seven lakh ha of land in …
What is soil? Nothing but simple clod, always taken for granted. But dig deeper, and you will find that this simple clod generates complex equations of survival and wealth, equity and polity. It is a big little ecological variable. Its influences remain hidden from us. function openpoptable(){ var popurl="http://dte-new/dte-new/html/20030131_cover2.htm" winpops=window.open(popurl,"","width=475,height=500, …
the latest in the long list of controversies regarding the loss of India's biological wealth is from the state of Chhattisgarh. The media is abuzz with reports on the proposed collaboration between Raipur-based Indira Gandhi Agricultural University (igau) and Syngenta, one of the world's biggest agriculture companies. The controversy revolves …
who would have thought that bacterium genes could one day make rice hardy? Biologists from New York-based Cornell University have made this possible. To make a rice strain resistant to drought, cold and salt water, they have fused two genes from the Escherichia coli bacterium, and then inserted them into …
Using genes from mangrove plants, scientists from the Chennai-based M S Swaminathan Research Foundation (MMSRF) are developing transgenic varieties of rice, mustard and black gram that can withstand salinity and drought conditions. The scientists have isolated and characterised the salt-resistant genes from two mangrove species
Water shortage might be threatening agriculture, but it is proving beneficial for the environment in some ways. A study by researchers from Durham-based University of New Hampshire indicates that using less water for paddy cultivation worldwide has reduced methane emissions by around 12 per cent. As a result of water …
When Karnataka chief minister (cm) S M Krishna was asked to disclose his "strategy' for resolving the raging Cauvery river dispute with Tamil Nadu (tn), he wrung his hands and said: "The only panacea is rainfall.' While Krishna lobbed the ball in "Nature's court', his tn counterpart
www.knowledgebank.irri.org Now, the latest farming and production info is available to the rice industry online. This is the world's first digital extension service for the rice industry. Called the Rice Knowledge Bank, the website was launched at the International Rice Congress in Beijing on September 18. It is developed by …
Approximately 80 per cent of all calories consumed in the world come from genomes that are similar to rice. The fact that the rice genome is relatively small, and the availability of modern efficient genetic transformation techniques, have enabled rice scientists to explore this grass in depth. An essential aspect …
Over the past couple of decades, agricultural research has seen increasing involvement of the private sector in what was almost exclusively the preserve of public-funded institutions. With research taking place in the public sector, there was no problem with sharing technology. The spread of the Green Revolution technology is a …
The publication of two rice genome sequences could not have come at a better time. With the human genome project meeting its targets ahead of time, genomics in general is looming large on the horizon, waiting to dominate the scene completely. The rice genome project is to agriculture research what …
Rice is the staple food for much of the third world. Needless to say, improvement in its yield and quality would go a long way towards establishing food security. To know and understand its genome structure and function is the first step that the scientific community is taking in this …
The legend in Bastar is that there was a clash between dhan (rice) and human beings. The winner would feed on the loser. First, they compared varieties, and discovered that there were as many varieties of rice as there were human beings. However, all these varieties were of one form. …
Imagine, a world without hunger. And rice in India for perhaps less than Rs 2? It is possible only if the idea of social benefit wins over the temptation of big bucks. Scientists have decoded the rice genome. This means for the first time the wise men have understood and …
A river tells its story through its geological history and the life that it supports. Much can be revealed to the discerning observer, as in the case of the Indravati river, which traverses the Bastar district of Chhattisgarh. The predominantly tribal population here, whose livelihood depends on this river, is …
