Agriculture News

At the break of dawn in Taplejung in eastern Nepal, as a rooster crows, two men grab their slingshots and head out to work. They have a long day ahead…

The massive heat wave scorching large parts of Asia has swept up Bangladesh. The country is experiencing temperatures among the highest in six decades. Bangladesh's capital city, Dhaka, saw the…

Crop raids by wild animals are increasing in Sri Lanka, and with them, the human-animal conflicts and related discourse. But a fresh debate on wildlife exploitation has arisen in the…

Every few weeks, 53-year-old agricultural entomologist Rajendra Hegde addresses a large gathering in Bengaluru, where he puts forth a proposition: imagine walking up to your rooftops or balconies and foraging…

Farmer Mahesh Chandrakar from Chhattisgarh’s Dhamtari district was worried about his cow’s health. The cow had been suffering from fever for many weeks. Chandrakar tried giving all the medicines prescribed…

Armed with the idea that shifting cultivation is primitive and unsustainable, based on a certain narrative she was exposed to in the academic world, Assam-born researcher Joli Rumi Borah had…

India's wheat crop this year has been hit because of excessive rainfall in the crucial month of March, when the crop enters the vital grain-filling stage and gets ready for…

In late February, the Indian Institute of Wheat and Barley Research (IIWBR), a leading scientific institute for wheat, released an advisory recommending farmers in India to spray potassium chloride on…

The 2022 Assam floods, following record-breaking rains, were the worst that the state has seen in the last decade. Soon-after, some districts faced a drought-like situation forcing farmers to work…

As the percussion ensemble of Pancharimelam evoked the spirit of temple festivals of Kerala, an elderly man, fondly called Vittachhan (Seed Father), clad in his trademark saffron sarong and white…

The Western Ghats of India are broadly divided into three subdivisions — the northern, central and southern — separated by the Goa gap and the Palghat gap respectively. Due to…

When India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced the Union Budget in February 2023, she referred to millets as "shri anna" or the best of all grains. Her rebranding of millets…

Devsharan Patel, 53, a farmer in Dhatura, a village in Madhya Pradesh’s Satna district, is on his way to his field. He carries a battery-operated pesticide sprayer on his shoulder.…

“It was around seven in the evening. During a routine inspection in my field, I discovered a herd of seven-eight wild boars. They were big, some 2.5-3 feet in height.…

India is the fourth-largest producer of agrochemicals in the world, declared agricultural minister Narendra Singh Tomar, at a speech in September 2021. Speaking at the 41st annual general meeting of…

In the vast saffron-growing land of Pampore, a national highway (NH44) cuts through the middle. Ishfaq Ahmad, a saffron grower, is pondering the future of this land. His eyes are…

Kush Sethi does not remember the day, but he remembers the exact moment when he started paying attention to urban weeds. While following a Bengaluru-based volunteer group on Facebook that…

Despite years of discussions to phase out paddy in Punjab, owing to its impact on groundwater, latest data shows that the paddy crop area still dominates agriculture in the state.…

Ram Sagar, 64, a farmer who lives in Turkauli village of Barabanki district in Uttar Pradesh, lost three and a half acres of paddy crop due to heavy, unseasonal rains…

Sanjeev Nagpal owns one of the oldest biogas plants in Chandigarh, where his company converts paddy straw to biogas. He uses this gas to produce power that he sells to…