Plea to invest one per cent of agricultural GDP in research

“The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) is asking the Government to invest one per cent of the total agricultural Gross Domestic Product in agricultural research for the XII Five Year Plan,” S. Ayyappan, Director General of ICAR, said here on Wednesday. Delivering the convocation address of the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, he pointed out that the agricultural research system at the national level was so strong that it was able to provide for the 122 crore population.

The stir by Maharashtra's sugarcane farmers demanding higher prices for their crop has spread to more areas of the state’s western region.

The European Union (EU) has announced on October 17 that the amount of biofuels that will be required to make up the transportation energy mix by 2020 has been halved from 10 per cent to 5 per cent.

The rollback mostly affects first-generation biofuels, which are produced from food crops such as corn, sugarcane, and potato. The new policy is in place to mitigate the backfiring of switching from less-clean fossil fuels to first-generation biofuels. A study conducted in 2009-2012 by the EU found that greenhouse gas emissions were on the rise because of conversion of agricultural land for planting first-generation biofuel crops. It also became known that large quantities of carbon stock had been released into the atmosphere because of forest clearance and peatland-draining.

Farmers demand . 3,000/tonne as first installment of cane price – double the state’s FRP
JAYASHREE BHOSALE PUNE

Permitting ethanol production will save up huge chunk of foreign exchange spent on petroleum exports, said S. Nallasamy, pro-toddy activist and field organiser of People’s Movement of India.

He was speaking to reporters here after the ethanol campaign journey led by him reached Tiruvannamalai on Saturday. “India relies on imports for 80 per cent of its petroleum needs. By extensively replacing petroleum with ethanol, that could be produced from sugarcane and corn etc., not only the foreign exchange, we can also save our farmers and the whole economy. Some may argue that by permitting ethanol production, we may end up permitting a steep hike in the price of sugar.

The People's Movement of India will launch a nation-wide awareness campaign and take out a yatra from Coimbatore to New Delhi to urge the Central Government to promote the use of ethanol as an alternative automotive fuel.

The campaign will be launched on September 21 and the yatra will commence at 10 a.m. on the same day from the Red Cross Society premises in Coimbatore, Field organiser of the movement C. Nallasamy told newspersons here on Monday.