Ranchi, May 23: Chief secretary S.K. Choudhary today directed agriculture and co-operative departments to prepare proposals to extend crop insurance benefits to farmers during the current sowing season.
Colombia plans to nearly double agricultural land growing crops for food and biofuel, part of a new investment boom in the country as violence ebbs from a decades-long internal conflict fueled by drug profits.
The idea is to transform the vast eastern plains, dotted for years with illicit coca plantations, into the country's bread basket in a push to bring down food prices and boost revenues fr
Fears large-scale diversion of grain for manufacture of ethanol by the alcohol industry
The food ministry is set to oppose the mandatory 5% ethanol blending programme, fearing diversion of foodgrain for manufacture of ethanol.
The ministry has called for the report of the expert panel headed by Planning Commission member Saumitra Chaudhuri in order to "review" the programme.
The recently sown cotton crop on around 37,000 hectares in Ferozepur and Muktsar districts has been destroyed following a freak hailstorm and rain two days earlier.
Reports received here by the Agriculture Department indicate the newly sown cotton crop has been partially damaged in Bathinda and Mansa districts.
The production of food grains is projected to increase in the current fiscal year compared to last year.
According to the preliminary projections of the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives (MoAC) released on Wednesday, the total production of food gains will increase by 11 percent this year.
The MoAC's projection also unveiled that the total cereal production (rice, maize, wheat, millet
A dire drought that has plagued Texas and parts of Oklahoma expanded across the key farming state of Kansas over the last week, adding to struggles of wheat farmers already dealing with weather-ravaged fields.
Harvest in Kansas, the top U.S. wheat-growing state, is set to begin within weeks.
Around 51 agricultural foods are contaminated with pesticide residues and of these, 20 per cent has pesticide residues more than the maximum residue limit in India.
India produces 85,000 tonnes of pesticides every year.
The pesticide endosulfan was recently banned by the government, but many other chemical pesticides continue to be used for a better, higher and quicker yield, as they prevent
WHEN UNION Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar announced a bumper harvest last month, “the highest since 1947”, commodities markets perked up, sniffing food export opportunities.
