This report evaluates emission mitigation options to achieve net-zero carbon emissions through marginal abatement cost (MAC) curves for the existing plants in the fertiliser industry. MAC curves were developed for three major fertilisers produced in India, which account for 85 per cent of total fertiliser production—urea, di-ammonium phosphate (DAP), and …
There are worry lines all over the face of M K Bhojan, a small tea grower in the Nilgiris district of Tamil Nadu. Tea prices have fallen cataclysmically in the last few years, affecting small farmers like Bhojan most acutely. In 1997-98, one kilogramme (kg) of green tea leaf fetched …
india, which entirely depends on import to meet its requirement of two million tonnes of the potassic fertiliser, has taken the first step towards manufacturing the vital plant nutrient. The Bhavnagar-based Central Salt and Marine Chemicals Research Institute (csmcri) has developed a technology to produce potash from seawater. Though seawater …
sop to stay: Populism has prevailed over pragmatism. Bowing to pressure exerted from across the political spectrum, Union finance minister Jaswant Singh has rolled back the proposed hike in prices of fertilisers, which he had announced while presenting the Union budget. The minister had suggested that the price of urea …
The Sundarban delta region in the Bay of Bengal, with 10,000 square kilometres of estuarine mangrove forest and 102 islands, is the world's largest delta. The land here is an eerie muddle of landmass and sea, with mudflats and waves engaged in unrelenting battle. Constantly lashed by cyclonic storms and …
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, …
Perseverance pays. With the Malaysian government deciding to ban the herbicide paraquat, a long-standing campaign of environmental pressure groups has finally proved successful. Earlier, a wave of concern was raised by non-governmental organisations about the harmful effects of the chemical. The herbicide is used on bananas, cocoa, cotton, rubber and …
organic farming method uses land far more efficiently and with less environmental impact than conventional farming methods, shows a 21-year study. Unlike conventional farming, organic farming uses no synthetic fertilisers or pesticides. Because of this, organic crop yield is little less. The study conducted by scientists from Switzerland-based Research Institute …
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 Montreal Protocol may be doing wonders for healing the ozone layer over the poles, but it seems to have overlooked the problem in other places. According to a recent study, northern mid latitude stratospheric ozone levels will not recover to pre-1980 levels due to increasing levels of nitrous oxide …
Despite environmental pressure against the use of chemical fertilisers, the deadly substances continue to be used unabated across the globe. At the end of the 20th century an average of 91 kgs of fertilisers were used for every hectare of cropland
The run-up to the budget is curiously silent on the environment front. But then, if the Union budget of last year, or for that matter the ones preceding it, is anything to go by, it is not surprising. The finance minister may once more end up playing to the corporate …
in an attempt to assist organic farmers, the Union government is intending to clamp one per cent tax on chemical fertilisers. Union minister of state for finance Balasaheb Vikhe Patil recently said that the funds collected through the cess would be utilised to help agriculturists cope with the changes in …
PUSHPA M BHARGAVA Former director, Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology Manipulating research is not a new phenomenon. Earlier, the reason for manoeuvring the results of scientific research was professional rivalry. But for the last four decades, it has been economic gain and power, which could be personal, corporate or …
