SHILLONG: Minister of State for Agriculture and Food Processing Industries, Dr. Charan Das Mahant, visited ICAR Research Complex for NEH region, Umiam for a two day visit here on Saturday. During the visit, the MoS inaugurated the Phenomics facility at Plant Breeding division of ICAR-RC-NEH at Umiam.

While highlighting the organic strength of the region, he said, “The north eastern region has the capacity to be the next organic producer in the country, if agricultural development is spread through adoption of innovative research being done at ICAR and other State Agricultural Universities in the region”.

With the effects of climate change becoming evident by the day and farmers having to face the worst, the good news is that the agriculture ministry's attempt to prepare district-level contingency p

JAMMU: Garden Glory, a human empowerment Cooperative Ltd will train the farmers of the state in the cultivation of various floriculture crops, ornamental, medicinal and aromatic plants by providing latest research know how to them for promotion of floriculture industry to enhance their social economic growth and employment.

This was stated in a meeting of Garden Glory here today. It said Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR), Member Secretary, Dr Som Dutt Tyagi is visiting Jammu soon to give final shape to ICAR schemes to benefit the farmers of the state.

PANJIM: As the mining industry is going through crisis, agriculture experts have said that the mined land can be reclaimed and used to cultivate cash crops which can give far decent living to thos

Farmers welcome the stand of the government of India on the outright rejection of the recommendations of the technical expert committee to the Supreme Court, which suggested that a moratorium be im

Slamming the basis of recommendation for a 10-year moratorium on the field trials of GM crops, the Centre on Friday described the Technical Expert Committee’s (TEC) report as “scientifically flawed

PANJIM: The Goa government has sought help from the Indian Council for Agricultural Research to help preserve the state germplasm as well as further research and develop it to get higher yield.

Director of ICAR, Dr Narendra Singh too said that the local germplasm of the state especially when it came to locally grown varieties of vegetables, like brinjal etc, were some of the best in the country and needed to be preserved and that the ICAR was amenable to preserving it and taking it forward.

The prime minister's scientific advisory council had advocated introduction of GM crops in India, but under strict regulatory mechanism

Even as the Supreme Court is set to hear the petition to ban testing of genetically modified (GM) crops on October 29, the apex body that is supposed to regulate GM crops in the country, the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC), has been in limbo since April when it last met. The GEAC was last reconstituted in June 2009 for three years. Since its tenure ended in June, the committee has neither been reconstituted nor its tenure extended. According to senior scientists, this has severely harmed the progress made in field testing and research of new crop varieties.

Plunging groundwater level in western states prods crop scientists to suggest change.

Genetic engineering has been hailed as a panacea for the problem of global hunger and population explosion, but research studies reveal that it has failed to deliver the goods. At the same time, it has created more problems than it could solve. The Union of Concerned Scientists, an international research group based in the US, said none of the genetically engineered crops under cultivation so far has boosted farm yield or overcome the problem of drought conditions.

“Genetic engineering has actually done very little to increase the yield of food and feed crops. It appears unlikely that this technology will play a leading role in helping the world feed itself in the foreseeable future,” said the Union of Concerned Scientists. In a document — Failure to Yield — released at the CoP-11, the research group reviewed the data on soybeans and corn, the main GE food/feed crops in the USA.