Latest to bear the brunt of Amir Khan's "Satyamev Jayate" is the farming community in India who according to the show were using excessive pesticides during farming thus exposing consumers to the hazards posed by the pesticides.

The National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) is an important milestone and mechanism, the manifestations of which help us in reviewing crucial issues regarding the impact of development interventions in Indian rural ecosystems.

Onion and garlic are very important commodities consumed in India in the form of spices and condiments. Unlike other vegetables, they are required daily in the kitchen and therefor augmentation of daily supply in the market at reasonable prices is very essential.

True potato seeds (TPS) are sexually produced propagules of potato and are preferred for its high yield and the power to resist late blight disease of potato. Seed tubers used for propagation are high in volume and pose problems in quality, availability, transportation, marketing & storage. As compared to seed based systems of other crops, multiplication rates are low with high storage and transportation costs. As seed tubers undergo vegetative propagation, they are vulnerable to pathological and physiological degeneration during post harvest handling, transport and storage.

Dr. Panna Lal Singh, Sr. Scientist, Central Institute of Agricultural Engineering, Nabibagh, Bhopal tells us about the solar cocoon dryer, an energy efficient and cost effective technology for the silk industry.

Under the present agricultural scenario prevailing at global and domestic levels for achieving sustainable income, farmers need to re-orient themselves from mere producers to agri-businessmen. Rather than being helpless individual farmers, if they unite and join hands as a group in the form of 'Community based organisation' (CBO), they can reap many benefits. Dr. V. Rajagopal and C. V. Sairam attempted to highlight the distinct advantages of CBO for the farming community with case studies of a project undertaken in the Central Plantation Crops Research Institute Kasaragod for three years.

The crisis in agriculture is real and cannot be denied despite official apathy for more than two decades.

The prospects for agriculture partly tied to the overall prospects remained unclear in the Copenhagen climate talks. Keeping in view of poverty reduction, food security and climate change, if forest and agriculture sectors come together and address in an integrated fashion, they can push for provisions in favour of the sectors.

Many organisations emerged in the country to create awareness among the farmers on organic farming. The 'Welfare Organization for Rural Development' (WORD) is a dedicated organization in Tirupati (A.P.) working for the upliftment of the rural poor through implementation of various technologies for livelihood, health and environment protection.

Soybean, the 'Golden Bean' is an important oilseed and pulse crop containing about 20% edible oil and 40% protein. Soybean being legume crop, mainly draw nutrients from native pool of soil therefore the incremental doses of fertilizers will not help in increasing the productivity, rather the function of beneficial microbes particularly, that of nitrogen fixing ones will be decreased.