Vijay Jawandhia is a farmer in Vidarbha, the region which brought home to us the crisis that is compelling farmers to kill themselves. He is also a leader of farmers. Recently, he spoke of new challenges: "In my village we are hiring vehicles and bringing people from cities to work …
Afrequent traveller to rural parts of northern India will find something odd about the roadside sights on a ride from Jaipur to Jobner, especially during late March. On the fields flanking the nearly 50-km stretch, bundles of freshly cut wheat signal the harvest season. But instead of the golden ears …
There is one being-Indian-thing, which spans the urban-rural and the rich-poor divide: our annual watch and wait for the monsoon. It begins every year, without fail as heat climbs and the monsoon advances. The farmers wait desperately because they need the rain at the right time to sow their crops. …
Livestock is a very important component for profitable farming as most of the agricultural by-products can be used to feed them converting them into manure immediately. Other economical gains are in the form of wool, milk, egg, meat and skin. In India, very good draught animals like bullocks and he …
Despite its rich resources like forests and minerals, Bundelkhand is a region of distress and crisis. A study fi nds that the distress of the region simply cannot be explained by the absence or irregularity of rainfall. There are long-term structural problems which have had a cumulative effect over the …
The modest potential of dry farming in vast areas, will add to a substantial overall growth. Our farmers seem to be in distress. Except for a few well to do ones, most of them find their life as farmers miserable. They find it increasingly difficult to make both ends meet, …
The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, the most comprehensive repository of the world's agricultural diversity created in the remote island of Spitsbergen in the Arctic, is a symbol of humanity's concern for its long-term future. The vault is the international community's response to the many challenges to agriculture, the most formidable …
