ABOUT 30,000 farmers in Maharashtra are feeling cheated. The soybean seeds they had purchased from the state seed corporation, Mahabeej, failed to germinate this season. Over 40,000 hectares (ha) of farms in seven districts have been affected. Mahabeej has 45 per cent share in the soy seed business in the …
Farmer-breeders are an unsung tribe. In far corners of the world, farmers study the seeds they use, experiment with them, do simple back-crossing to improve yields and taste, and quite often come up with winners. Some farmers are geniuses when it comes to improving their seed and introducing simple but …
What is biofortification of crops? Biofortification is a process where plant breeders explore crop genetic diversity in seed banks and create a crop that is rich in specific micronutrients. There are two ways to biofortify crops—conventional plant breeding and transgenic methods.How do you decide the amount of nutrient to be …
THREE months after the country’s top science academies released their controversial report backing genetically modified (GM) crops and hastily withdrew it after it was panned by the scientific community, they are back with an updated report—and the verdict is that it is worse than the original. The Inter-Academy Report on …
Something is stirring in paddy fields across India. New seeds, new crop management techniques and newly minted food security policies are about to hit the countryside. Not all of the changes that are being forged in Krishi Bhawan, headquarters of the Union agriculture ministry, in the top-flight research institutions across …
IT IS an aphrodisiac. Treats fatigue and bone weakness. Ashwagandha (Withania somnifera) occupies a prominent position in traditional health systems like Ayurveda. In India the medicinal plant is cultivated on 4,000 hectares, mainly in Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat. But when it comes to being the most effective, a group of …
The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has certified the controversial rice variety PAU-201 as fit for human consumption. The fate of 400,000 tonnes of rice, costing Rs 4,000 crore, was hanging in balance for more than a year; Food Corporation of India (FCI), the Central procurement agency, and the …
India must document and legally protect the farmers' varieties (FVs) and use them globally as a trade strategy. The FVs therefore can be equated with the prior art provision of The Patents (Amendment) Act, 2005. Providing necessary legal framework will ensure that already known FVs are not encroached as
Growing food has always been a struggle, and it is only thanks to modern agricultural research that most people now have enough to eat. Today we need that research more than ever. The growing demand for meat can only add to the strain on grain supplies, as livestock need to …
Late last month the Svalbard Global Seed Vault opened in Longyearbyen, on the Norwegian island of Spitsbergen. The facility is nothing less than a Noah's ark of plants for the 21st century, aiming to preserve the world's crop biodiversity while we still have a fighting chance.
A wheat disease that could destroy most of the world's main wheat crops could strike south Asia's vast wheat fields two years earlier than research had suggested, leaving millions to starve. The fungus, called Ug99, has spread from Africa to Iran, and may already be in Pakistan.
