Exactly two years later, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has set up yet another Group of Ministers (GoM) after key ministries disagreed on the basic tenets of a 2007 Cabinet decision to blend ethanol

Though copious rains in the last few weeks helped Andhra Pradesh achieve averages in rainfall, the distribution of rainfall is not uniform.

The drought tag will help banks restructure farm loans; States can offer diesel subsidy

Standing crops wither; drinking water crisis aggravates, The agriculture fields in the district would have been green with the sprouting green gram, soyabean, bajra and jowar crops had it rained as per convention. But then, with the showers eluding this part of the earth, there is still the shadow of drought over the district.

However, the crop that is the hardest hit is sugarcane. Cane grown on 25,605 hectares, out of the total 88,500 hectares in 428 villages has withered, leaving the farmers high and dry. The district administration has put the loss at Rs 1.26 crore.

Amid growing concern over a slow and weak progression of this year’s southwest monsoon, the government today assured the nation that the situation for most kharif crops, barring coarse cereals, had not turned worrisome yet. Experts, however, cast doubts over the claims, particularly on water-intensive paddy cultivation.

The situation in kharif crops is “not as serious now”, but the department has directed states to prepare contingency plans, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar told reporters.

New Delhi: The amount of salt and sugar on the menus of fast food companies in India may soon come under the scanner.

With the southwest monsoon playing truant in northeast and central India, the Centre has asked States to be ready with alternate crops that are hardy, and can withstand dry conditions.

There are reports that in some north-western states, farmers have slowed down sowing, in the hope that the monsoon will arrive or revive in the first week of July. So far, 74 per cent of the country has received deficient rain since the onset of southwest monsoon on June 5, raising serious concerns in the farming community.

Earlier this year, Sunil Kadam, 38, a sugarcane farmer from Kolhapur, went to Europe, where he visited dairies and cheese processing units in Amsterdam, saw greenhouses being run on solar energy in