Organic Farmer Mag – Online

Before Haber and Bosch invented atmospheric nitrogen fixation, farmers used manure, compost, cover crops and crop rotations to keep their soils fertile. Farmers relied on biological processes to feed their crops, and limited nitrogen availability often compromised yields. Mineral N fertilizer revolutionized farming, bypassing microbial decomposition to directly feed the crop surplus levels of nitrogen. Virtually unlimited nitrogen availability produced drastically higher yields, but the excess N began polluting groundwater, rivers, wetlands and oceans.

The green revolution demonstrated agricultural crops’ impressive yield potential and heightened consumers’ quality expectations. Modern organic practices seek to minimize nitrogen pollution while attaining yield and crop quality metrics comparable to conventionally produced crops. Carbon-based organic materials provide initial protection against ...

FrontLine – Online

A NEW report published by scholars associated with the Network of Rural and Agrarian Studies (NRAS) provides a comprehensive and critical overview of the state of contemporary rural India. Titled “State of Rural and Agrarian India Report 2020: Rethinking Productivity and Populism Through Alternative Approaches”, the report focusses on the key structural factors that have marked rural India’s economic and ecological conditions and also suggests alternative ideas, paradigms and methodologies to address the entrenched problems.

The authors of the report, who have been thinking about these issues for the past decade, are the sociologist Richa Kumar (an associate professor at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi), Nikhit Kumar Agrawal (a PhD student in anthropology at the University ...

Economic Times – Online

The agriculture employs around 58% of the population contributing significantly to the Indian economy and accounting for 13% of total exports from the country. India continues to be a major supplier in the global food basket, as it is the world’s leading producer and consumer of milk, wheat, pulses, basmati rice, spices, oil, meat, sugar, cotton and castor oil. While the COVID-19 pandemic was tough for many sectors of the Indian economy, agriculture and related operations displayed resilience. However as was the case with all other major sectors, the pandemic made it imperative for the agricultural industry to look at ways of leveraging tech innovations for sustenance and revival, especially in the case of small holder ...