The Tribune

Experts of the Agriculture Department, Punjab Agricultural University and the Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK) are jointly make efforts to increase the area under direct seeding of rice (DSR) in the district. The farmers, who seeded rice crops directly, faced several issues and many of them again returned to the puddling method to transplant the paddy.

Taking it as a challenge, this year agricultural experts came up with the “tar-wattar” (high moisture condition) technique to address the issue of seed germination.

Dr Narinderpal Singh, district extension specialist at Farm Advisory Service Center, KVK, Amritsar, said, “Germination of seed was the major issue being faced by farmers in direct sowing of rice. The farmers used to sow ...

The Better India

Dr Priyadarshini Karve was born in Pune but spent her childhood in Phaltan, a small town about 100 km from her hometown in Maharashtra. Walking or cycling her way to school and back home, she passed through lush green sugarcane fields, a popular crop in the region.

Besides enjoying the scenic view, she also happened to see the lifecycle of a sugarcane crop from its plantation until the post-harvest waste management. She also witnessed the farmers casually burning the dry leaves and organic waste after the harvest, releasing toxic smoke into the air.

“The dense smoke polluted the air, spread throughout the vicinity and affected the breathing and visibility of villagers and animals,” Dr ...

India Today

The United Nations (UN) will organise the world food summit later this year in a bid to bring focus on agriculture and farming and transform the way the world produces and consumes food. Unsustainable food production has emerged as a major challenge for countries across the world as in the past 100 years, more than 90 per cent of crop varieties have disappeared.

The UNEP in a statement said that just nine plant species account for 66 per cent of total crop production, contributing to several health risks globally. The organisation maintained that intensive farming also has a role in zoonotic disease like Covid-19 as deforestation and reduce the major clearing of natural buffers that ...

Times of India

With urbanisation creating more environmental issues, it is time we looked forward to unique rural models to progress towards a sustainable carbon-neutral society, said C Balagopal, former IAS officer and founder of Terumo Penpol, India’s largest blood bag manufacturer.

Delivering the 19th edition of the ‘Beyond Square Feet’ Lecture organized on the World Environment Day by Asset Homes in Kochi, Balagopal said that time has come to promote the unique homestead farming, which not only sustains the rural population economically but also finds a way forward for better protection of the environment.He said that we are living in an age when increased urbanization has created enough and more problems and challenges.

The Tribune

Punjab Agricultural University Farm Advisory Service Centre (FASC) experts organised a training camp on seed/nursery treatment of basmati rice in a Tarn Taran village, Kot Mohammad Khan, adopted by the centre.

More than 40 farmers participated in the camp organised under the ‘Farm Advisory Service Scheme’.

Extension specialist (Plant pathology) Dr Parminder Kaur demonstrated how to do seed treatment and root dip treatment of basmati rice with Trichoderma harziamum (a fungus) to avoid foot rot disease which sometimes causes huge losses to the crop. She also distributed the strain among farmers and explained the various activities being conducted by FASC experts and asked the farmers to adopt new technologies invented by the PAU. She told ...

News18

As paddy sowing season begins, farmers in Punjab await the return of migrant labourers from states like Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. While some are coming back, a large section of the highly skilled labourers are yet to show up mainly due to the coronavirus-induced lockdown that has restricted movement across the country. Dearth of labourers also threatens to mount costs for the farmers with the per-acre wage going up from Rs 1,700-2,000 in pre-Covid times to Rs 3,000 at present.

Skillset is another major concern why local labourers are not favoured. “The migrant labourers have a knack of sowing each paddy seedling transplanted into the ready field. Not one seedling goes waste. Due to their ...

The Tribune

Not waiting for the official June 10 date for the start of the paddy transplantation, several farmers with the support of unions have started transplantation in many villages of Mansa and Bathinda districts in the region.

At some places even leaders of farmer unions are making farmers transplant paddy, giving thumbs down to the state government’s schedule. Even activists are holding farmer union flags in the fields while planting paddy.

The BKU (Ekta Ugrahan) has also announced that their village unit will keep a vigil on the paddy transplanted and would gehrao police or Agriculture Department officials if they try to stop the work. They also assured nobody will be allowed to uproot the planted ...

The Tribune

With the mass exodus of migrant workers, who went back to their native states after the Covid-induced lockdown, the paddy sowing season that officially begins from June 15 is facing an unprecedented crisis.

The sowing depends heavily on domestic farm labourers, who are demanding higher wages, forcing local farmers to put a cap on the paddy transplant wages.

Farmers of Budhanpur Viran village near Nissing, around 17 km from the district headquarters, fixed the wages of paddy transplantation for local labourers after holding a meeting on Tuesday. “We have the fixed paddy transplantation wages and no farmer will pay more than Rs 2,700 per acre to labour. Those paying above the fixed wages will be fined Rs ...