As climate change intensifies, it is imperative for policymakers to address the escalating loss and damage it inflicts on vulnerable communities in developing countries. In India's Maharashtra state, these impacts are forcing rural families into life-altering decisions and migrations to work in sugarcane fields, where exploitative practices by contractors, including …
The NSS consumer expenditure survey (CES) aims at generating estimates of average household monthly per capita consumer expenditure (MPCE), its distribution over households and persons, and its break-up by commodity group, at national and State/UT level, and for different socio-economic groups. This report covers a few aspects of household consumption …
Plea to invest one per cent of agricultural GDP in research “The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) is asking the Government to invest one per cent of the total agricultural Gross Domestic Product in agricultural research for the XII Five Year Plan,” S. Ayyappan, Director General of ICAR, said …
The stir by Maharashtra's sugarcane farmers demanding higher prices for their crop has spread to more areas of the state’s western region. Today, farmers came out in large numbers and fought pitched battles on the roads linking the cities of Kolhapur, Sangli and Satara to Mumbai. According to the state …
The European Union (EU) has announced on October 17 that the amount of biofuels that will be required to make up the transportation energy mix by 2020 has been halved from 10 per cent to 5 per cent. The rollback mostly affects first-generation biofuels, which are produced from food crops …
Farmers demand . 3,000/tonne as first installment of cane price – double the state’s FRP JAYASHREE BHOSALE PUNE The deadlock over sugar cane price has yet again delayed the crushing season in top sugar producer Maharashtra. Unlike last year, state government has opted not to intervene till now. The Raju …
Phytolith occluded carbon (PhytOC) which is stable in the soil environment is considered to be an important fraction of soil organic carbon and substantially contributes to the terrestrial carbon sequestration for long periods (millennia). Phytoliths are silica bodies produced by plants as a result of biomineralization process. During this process, …
The Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (Chairperson: C. Rangarajan) submitted a ‘Report on the Regulation of Sugar Sector in India: The Way Forward’ on October 5, 2012. The Report examines the issues related to the regulation of the sugar sector, and suggests ways to promote efficiency and investments …
Permitting ethanol production will save up huge chunk of foreign exchange spent on petroleum exports, said S. Nallasamy, pro-toddy activist and field organiser of People’s Movement of India. He was speaking to reporters here after the ethanol campaign journey led by him reached Tiruvannamalai on Saturday. “India relies on imports …
The People's Movement of India will launch a nation-wide awareness campaign and take out a yatra from Coimbatore to New Delhi to urge the Central Government to promote the use of ethanol as an alternative automotive fuel. The campaign will be launched on September 21 and the yatra will commence …
Exactly two years later, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has set up yet another Group of Ministers (GoM) after key ministries disagreed on the basic tenets of a 2007 Cabinet decision to blend ethanol extracted from sugarcane in petrol. Last Thursday, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs agreed on creating a …
Though copious rains in the last few weeks helped Andhra Pradesh achieve averages in rainfall, the distribution of rainfall is not uniform. Of the 1,128 mandals (revenue units), about 350 mandals received scant rainfall. While 460 mandals received normal rainfall, 313 mandals registered more than the normal rainfall. Paddy continues …
The drought tag will help banks restructure farm loans; States can offer diesel subsidy Rains in the last one week speeded up the planting of soya bean and rice while sugar cane acreage expanded beyond last year’s area. However, with the monsoon deficit still remaining around 20%, all eyes will …
The eighteenth edition of the Agricultural Outlook provides projections to 2021 for the major agricultural commodities and biofuels as well as fish and seafood. Recent market trends and likely future developments are discussed in detail. This report foresees continuing high commodity prices and concerns over food price inflation. A special …
Standing crops wither; drinking water crisis aggravates, The agriculture fields in the district would have been green with the sprouting green gram, soyabean, bajra and jowar crops had it rained as per convention. But then, with the showers eluding this part of the earth, there is still the shadow of …
Amid growing concern over a slow and weak progression of this year’s southwest monsoon, the government today assured the nation that the situation for most kharif crops, barring coarse cereals, had not turned worrisome yet. Experts, however, cast doubts over the claims, particularly on water-intensive paddy cultivation. The situation in …
A price increase and improvement in the terms of trade of agriculture after 2004-05 have revived agriculture in Uttar Pradesh. The performance, however, has varied across regions within the state and among crop groups. Price policies in favour of cereals discourage land diversification, but rising agricultural wages induce shifts in …
With the southwest monsoon playing truant in northeast and central India, the Centre has asked States to be ready with alternate crops that are hardy, and can withstand dry conditions. There are reports that in some north-western states, farmers have slowed down sowing, in the hope that the monsoon will …
New Delhi: The amount of salt and sugar on the menus of fast food companies in India may soon come under the scanner. The World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday said it would like to see the Union health ministry regulate the use of salt and sugar in the fast …
Earlier this year, Sunil Kadam, 38, a sugarcane farmer from Kolhapur, went to Europe, where he visited dairies and cheese processing units in Amsterdam, saw greenhouses being run on solar energy in Germany and learnt more about mixed farming. A couple of months later, Kadam started a dairy unit to …
