The Indian Express

Although autarky on Indian farms is a distant dream, as the 71st year of Independence dawns, penury-ridden farmers are still committing suicide by the thousands— a consequence of decades of short-sightedness, while economists and scientists are still equating food sufficiency to farmer sustainability.

DinaThanthi

Notwithstanding crop damage due to floods in Gujarat, the largest cotton producing state, India’s cotton output in the forthcoming 2017-18 season starting October is seen increasing by 10-15 per cent on rise in acreage across the country. Besides, a favourable monsoon in most parts of key growing states such as Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, and in North India, is aiding the output.

The Economic Times

The Commerce Ministry issued a notification on August 5, making changes in the import policy of tur (pigeon pea) by putting restriction of 2 lakh tonne in imports during a financial year. The restrictions will apply until 2018. Although the trade still awaits clarification on transit cargo in the high seas and bound for Indian shores, it is also of the opinion that the move would protect local farmers.

Financial Chronicle

Issuing a strong warning, the government said no contract would be registered from November 1 unless accompanied by a testing report from an accredited laboratory. The European Union has rejected an Indian demand to relax the norm for another year, sources said, following which the government’s agri-export promotion body, the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (Apeda), has issued a notification, making testing of Tricyclazole mandatory for contract registration.

The Indian Express

As Maharashtra reported more than 90 per cent sowing, moisture stress is now threatening the survival of standing crops in various parts of the state. As per early estimates, around 2 lakh hectares of standing crops in western Marathwada and parts of Vidharbha have been affected, and in absence of immediate rains, farmers in these areas may face crop loss. According to experts, June has been a good month for the state, with farmers speeding up sowing. However, absence of rains towards the end of June, mostly in Marathwada and Vidharbha regions, had harmed the crops during the crucial growth phase.

The Indian Express

The Maharashtra government said Monday almost 70 lakh farmers out of the total 1.36 crore across the state had registered themselves for the crop insurance scheme this year. The figure almost meets the state target of 78 lakh envisaged in the beginning of the kharif season, even as farmer leaders said 40 per cent farmers could not avail the benefit.

The Hindu

Krishna Byregowda, Karnataka’s Agriculture Minister, spoke about the interventions made in the State to include nutri-millets in the food basket. “We have procured millets for the State PDS system in Karnataka and are also paying a higher price to farmers supplying them,” he said, adding that agricultural scientists should focus on improving the yields of nutritional crops and make them remunerative for farmers to encourage them to grow these.

PR Newswire

For more than a century, FMC Corporation has served the global agricultural, industrial and consumer markets with innovative solutions, applications and quality products. Revenue totaled approximately $3.3 billion in 2016. FMC employs approximately 6,000 people throughout the world and operates its businesses in three segments: FMC Agricultural Solutions, FMC Health and Nutrition and FMC Lithium.

The Economic Times Reuters New Kerala

Consolidation at the global level of Monsanto-Bayer, Dow Chemical-Du Pont and ChemChina-Syngenta, among others, is triggering a corresponding consolidation of their arms in the Indian agrochemical space. With global acquisitions, the global agrochemical and seed industry is now being controlled by four big players, as against six earlier, commanding a market share of 55-60%, according to a Deloitte report.

HTDS The Pioneer

To look at seed-based solutions for problems in our food and farming systems is faulty. It’s time that public funds are spent on lasting solutions for India’s edible oil crisis, and not on hazardous distractions India spends a whopping Rs 66,000 crore on the import of edible oil, annually. Meeting the requirement of oil from within the country perhaps requires both right policy interventions and ecological solutions. And genetically modified mustard, proponents of which are going ballistic over as a ‘solution’ to fix the import bill issue, has nothing to do with it.

The Financial Express India Gist Shafaqna Times Mumbai

So Bhargava was not actually opposed to putting a toxic gene in a living organism; he was opposed to somebody else doing it for what he considered a fat price. Bhargava then went on to make charges against DBT secretary Manju Sharma during whose tenure Bt cotton, developed by Mahyco Monsanto, got approval for commercial cultivation in 2002. Critics say Monsanto has profited immensely from the technology in the past 15 years.

The Economic Times

While India reaped the benefits of the Green Revolution in the 1960s, her neighbour China is now taking the lead in another area of sustainable agriculture — developing crops that meet the challenges posed by global warming.