Reply by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) in compliance to the National Green Tribunal (NGT) order dated January 21, 2024 in the matter of ‘News item titled “Feeling anxious? Toxic air could be to blame” appearing in Times of India dated 10.10.2023’. NGT had directed CPCB to file a …
the verdict is finally out. Modern agricultural practices, espoused by the industrial farming model, and genetically modified crops are not good for the planet and its inhabitants, says the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science and Technology for Development report. What lends weight to the conclusions of the report is …
The age-old practice of turning the soil before planting a new crop is a leading cause of farmland degradation. Many farmers are thus looking to make plowing a thing of the past.
In order to address some issues faced by small farm holders, Agrarian Development Institute for Sustenance and Improved Livelihood (ADISIL), a Madurai based NGO, with the support of Svaraj, has revived an innovative, traditional technology, i.e. raised bed farming. Raised bed farming is the practice of using complex terraces of …
Farmers To Gain As Complex Fertilisers Get Cheaper, More Accessible THE government on Thursday cleared a new fertiliser pricing policy that will make some varieties cheaper and help farmers, but the industry said it was only a tentative first step toward price decontrol. "The prices of complex fertilisers will come …
Anthropogenic activities are responsible for the enhanced emission of reactive nitrogenous species like nitrous oxide (N2O), oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and ammonia (NH3) into the atmosphere from the biosphere. This article reviews the available estimates of emissions of these reactive nitrogenous species for India.
In semi arid areas such as the Sahelian zone of Africa, many oils have become severely degraded. One extreme form is the bare and crusted soil, which is virtually productively "dead". In Burkina Faso, farmers have responded by applying mulch to attract termites that then help to rehabilitate the soil. …
A pot experiment was conducted to study the toxic effect of nematicides: carbofuran, carbosulfan alone and their combination on soil microbial population and soil respiration with cotton as a test crop. The total bacterial population and free living diazotrophs population was reduced initially by nematicides application. With progress of time …
Many rural people in Tajikistan cannot afford to regularly buy products like fuel and agrochemical inputs. Instead, they rely on locally available yet increasingly scarce natural resources. One result is that large amounts of animal dung are used as fuel for cooking and heating. Simple modifications of local cookstoves are …
Potassium release kinetics was investigated in soils drawn from plots of a long term fertilizer experiment that had been receiving different rates of K. Non exchangeable K release was higher in soils that were receiving organic and inorganic fertilizers than the soils not dressed with K. The amount of non …
To help understand different viewpoints on the effectiveness of EM (Effective Micro-organism), LEISA asked two professionals for their opinion. Dr. Narayana Reddy is a prize-winning organic farmer (who made the transition from conventional agriculture in 1980), writer and trainer from Bangalore, India. Dr. Ken Giller is professor of Plant Production …
Excessive use of inorganic fertilizers and pesticides has affected soil and water quality in the Jaffna peninsula, Sri Lanka. Students from the Faculty of Agriculture at the University of Jaffna have been learning about green manures from farmers, and how they have been used to improve soils. Green manures were …
Integrating cover crops and green manures helps farmers rehabilitate degraded soils in highland areas. In Ecuador, farmers experimented with this conservation practice. They found that it improved their farming system in many ways: increased productivity in their main crop, decreased weeding time, provided them with an extra crop (for food, …
Getting farmers to adopt new technologies to address soil erosion and fertility problems is not easy. In Vietnam, a multidisciplinary research project to improve soil management in traditional mountainous agricultural farming systems managed to attract farmers' interest and stop soil erosion. This success stems from encouraging farmers, extensionists and researchers …
When agricultural researchers visit farms in order to gather information for their research programmes, farmers rarely get proper feedback. Research information on scientific concepts such as soil fertility and nutrient balances is often considered too abstract for them. Researchers in Kenya returned to farmers to discuss their results in the …
Farmers are more likely to adopt and adapt improved soil management strategies if their efforts lead to an immediate economic benefit. An encouraging policy environment, as well as farmer organisation also stimulates the adoption of conservation practices. In Mexico, farmers are adapting their maize-based cropping systems to conservation agriculture, leading …
Soil is often viewed as a physical substrate that performs a wide range of functions that also go beyond agriculture. It regulates water, sustains plant and animal life, recycles organic wastes, cycles nutrients, filters out pollutants, and serves as a physical support for structures. Yet, soil is also a living …
Tree leaves Corn stover Wood chips Poultry litter pellets Farmers can be trained to make biochar from agricultural waste depletion of organic matter in the soil and use of chemical fertilizers are increasingly becoming problems for farmers. Taking their cue from agricultural practices in the Amazon basin, scientists at Delaware …
GREEN TEAM: Microsoft India chairman Ravi Venkatesan with the Mumbai-based Novices@work team in Bangalore on Friday. The team will represent the country in the global Imagine Cup contest in July in France. The challenge of
