CEOs need to accelerate their action plans to safeguard the production of commodities critical to the global population and economy as heat stress and drought risk rise around the world, according to PwC's report, Climate Risks to Nine Key Commodities: Protecting People and Prosperity, published. The report, which analysed nine …
The demand for rice is constantly rising in Bangladesh with nearly 2.3 million people being added every year to its burgeoning population of 120 million. Bangladesh faces production constraints like drought, lack of irrigation facilities, flooding and salinity of soils. These factors are coupled with fluctuating rice prices in various …
cultivators of rice in India have something to look forward to. Agricultural researchers at the Karjat Research Centre, Maharashtra, have developed the nation's first hybrid rice variety
in december 1984, the Telugu Desam (a regional party in Andhra Pradesh), came to power and introduced a scheme to provide the poor households of the state rice at a nominal cost of Rs 2 per kg (it has since been revised to Rs 3.50 per kg). The cheap rice …
NORTH American wine merchants may sell liquor which tastes and smells exactly like champagne. But they can be hauled up in court for using that brand name, as only the French can market this sparkling concoction. Going by that count, the name 'basmati', alluding to the long- grained, fragrant rice …
The shortage of fertilisers is proving to be a major cause for the current peasant unrest in Bangladesh. Farmers, unable to grow the region's main rice crop this season, demonstrated before the district collector's office in North Bengal to voice their protest. They are also demanding a fair price for …
THE bullets were not meant to kill rice cells; they were aimed to impart resistance in them to fight off a destructive menace - bacterial leaf blight, a disease that routinely destroys rice crops around the world. Researchers led by Pamela Ronald from the University of California, us, recently performed …
SCIENTISTS at the Philippines- based International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) are currently field testing a prototype of a new and sturdier variety of rice on the institute's experimental plots. This new and robust variety shall have thicker grain-bearing stems apart from having greener and more erect leaves. The redesigned plant …
MORE the foodgrain, less the space to store them. Fihding itself in such a piquant situation, the Food Corporation of India (FU), has embarked on an ambitious Rs 10 billion project to suitably store the large quantity of foodgrains that it finds itself saddled with. The current stock of both …
MAJOR rice and water crises await Asian countries in the next 30 years, the International Rice Research Institute (iARi) reports. It predicts acute shortages of rice unless anti-pollution and conservation attempts are exercised in the area. iARi forewes social problems being triggered off by competition for declining water supplies and …
PREDICTIONS of the Union ministry of agriculture foresee India as the third biggest rice exporter in the world in the next financial year after the us and Thailand. It is estimated that rice exports will cross the two million tormes mark by March next year. Said Balrarn Jakhar, minister for …
Scientists at the Cuttack-based Central Rice Research Institute (CRRI) have developed a high yielding variety of rice called Lunishree that requires the minimal use of fertilisers, has a high resistance to salinity and a long grain. CRRI director B Venketaswarlu says that Lunishree yields are 28-30 per cent greater than …
FLOODED-PRONE regions of Bangladesh, China and North India could benefit from the discovery of a new improved variety of deep water rice. Scientists at the international rice research instutute (IRRI) said at an international conference at Manila that they had been a new rice plant, testing it in water upto …
THIS is a collecton of papers originating from a study of the North Arcot district in the early '80s, undertaken under the auspices of the Washington-based International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) to assess the impact of technological change in agriculture. With a reliable benchmark survey, adequate funding and an …
RICE staple diet of a large part of the world, was not entirely benign. Paddy fields, existing predominantly in tropical developing countries that account for about 90 per cent of globsl rice production, have been blamed for producing vast quantities of global-warming methane. But now, the former director of the …
THE scientists at the School of Genetics, Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU), Coimbatore, are a happy lot these days. And with good reason: India's first rice hybrid, MGR1, released by them after 15 years of research, has met with an enthusiastic response from farmers. The hybrid, named after former Tamil …
INDIA"S Green Revolution in the"60s had a baneful side to it too- the use of high-yielding seed varieties led to a spurt in fertiliser and pesticide application. This was especially true of rice, the staple food of a majority of Indians and other Asian people. The continent accounts for over …
Integrated pest management (IPM) is a method of reducing the use of pesticides by farmers by promoting alternative pest control practices such as the use of resistant rice varieties, dependence on natural enemies to control pests (also known as biological control), better water, weed, and fertillser managernent, and better cultivation …
"I have wasps to take care of the yellow stemborers and green leaffolders, spiders to control the brown planthopper and ducks and tadpoles to feed on the menacing golden apple snail. So why should I use insecticides?" says Sesinando Masajo, a 61-year-old farmer from the Laguna province of the Philippines, …
INDIAN exporters had pinned their hopes on gaining entry into the Japanese rice market in the wake of the compulsory opening up under GATT. But the Japanese Food Agency has recently communicated that they would consider placing India in their shopping list only if its rice were free from harmful …
RICE has traversed the world and has ended up where it has no business to be. Should an American multinational, of all entities, hold the international patent for 2 traditional Asian rice varieties -- Indica and Japonica? Agracetus, the powerful biotech subsidiary of W R Grace, claims that it has …
