Surinder Sud / New Delhi September 22, 2009, 0:49 IST
Maize scientists plan to promote production of seeds of single-cross maize hybrids to boost the output of the nutritious and versatile coarse cereal for domestic consumption and exports.
With the rains gone, farmers in Dagana are estimating the damage caused by heavy and continuous rain last month, which include cultivated paddy fields, maize crops, irrigation channels and citrus mandarin (orange) trees.
Climate change threatens to bring food and water shortages to 1.6 billion people in South Asia, with the region's poorest likely to be worst hit, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said here Wednesday. New research commissioned by the ADB shows that if current climate trends persist until 2050, maize yields in South Asia will fall by 17 percent, wheat by 12 percent and rice by 10 percent.
Papers suggesting that biotech crops might harm the environment attract a hail of abuse from other scientists. Emily Waltz asks if the critics fight fair.
While news reports and disaster movies remind us about tipping points for Arctic melt and sea level rise, some things closer to home get less attention. Take food supply: new modelling studies show that there are climate tipping points here too, beyond which crop yields will collapse.
Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh here on Wednesday and demanded a special package of Rs 2,000 crore in addition to a drought relief of Rs 100 per quintal for paddy and Rs 50 per quintal for maize over and above the MSP. Badal said the PM has promised to look into his demands.
Britain must find ways to grow more food while using less water, energy and fertilizers to help feed a growing world population and offset the effects of climate change on agriculture, the government said on Monday.
A senior minister said last year's sharp rise in the cost of food and oil and a severe drought in Australia showed the urgent need to develop a food security plan.
Zimbabwe's once promising coffee industry faces total collapse due to upheavals linked to President Robert Mugabe's controversial land redistribution policy, a farmers union said on Wednesday.
The coffee industry was growing steadily until 2000, when Mugabe embarked on a drive to resettle landless but inexperienced black farmers on white-owned commercial farms.
International green groups attacked Europe's leading food safety agency on Wednesday for its views on biotech crops and foods, saying a recent opinion was flawed and had ignored studies highlighting safety concerns.
Udhampur: Demanding action against officers of the Agriculture Department responsible for the failure of the maize crop, social activists and dissident Congress leader RS Pathania has alleged that sub-standard and eaten up maize seeds were distributed among farmers of the Majalata area of Ramnagar .
