Demeter-certified produce to be shipped to Europe.

A.J. Vinayak

Even as the Indian cashew sector explores niche products for growth, a Mangalore-based cashew processing company has come out with biodynamic cashew for the domestic and export markets.

Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh today said the prescribed stipulations to avoid contamination of soil and traditional crops were adequate and there was no proposal to ban field trial of genetically modified crops.

M.J. PRABU

Shiv Visvanathan About the author: Shiv Visvanathan is a social scientist

Should Bt brinjal be banned for cultivation? Those who advocate this are closing off the non-pesticide option and arguing in favour of pesticide-based production of brinjal.

The use of Bt brinjal could be allowed on a carefully controlled basis, limiting as much as possible the spread of the Bt-gene.

Bhaskar Balakrishnan

Bt proponents

Ravish Tiwari
His colleagues in the Government, Ministers Sharad Pawar, Prithviraj Chavan and Kapil Sibal disagreed with him and called for science, not ideology, to dictate Government policy on genetically modified (GM) foods. Now the Prime Minister

CHENNAI: Top scientists from international agricultural institutes are heralding a new system of farming based on using fertilizer trees to increase crop yield.

The new system, which was inspired by small time farmers in Africa who grew the Acacia, could provide a solution to dwindling paddy production in India and will help mitigate climate change, they say.