Jun 20, 2018-India on Tuesday agreed to open two quarantine posts in Vittamod, province 2 and Gauriphanta in province 7 in a bid to facilitate better implementation of quarantine measures and reduce hassles faced by traders, during a meeting with a Nepali high-level delegation led by Chakra Pani Khanal, Minister for Agriculture, Land Management and Cooperatives, in New Delhi , India
Prime Minister Narendra Modi interacted with farmers via video conferencing to highlight his government’s major schemes aimed at boosting their income, and also address farm sector issues. The interaction with farmers was sixth such interaction that began on the eve of Modi government completing four years in office. Talking with farmers, PM Modi said his government has doubled the budget for agriculture to Rs 2.12 lakh crore to achieve its objective of doubling farm income by 2022.
The PM said the four cornerstones of the government policy for raising farm income are cutting input cost, fair price for the crop, preventing the produce from rotting and creating alternate sources of income.
Kochi: This monsoon when the new academic year has started, 30 students of the Agri Crop Health Management course of the Government Vocational Higher Secondary School (Boys), Kunnamkulam, Thrissur, are turning their campus into a hub of organic farming by sowing various vegetable seeds and planting seedlings.
The students prepared over five cents of land at the school gate under the direction of teachers for the purpose. The seedlings also were prepared by the students. There are other areas on the campus which are also used for cultivation. Teachers give training in classrooms in this regard apart from giving on-field directions.
For the first time the consumers came forward to partner with the farmers cultivating millets and pulses using organic methods.
The consumers from Hyderabad, who signed an agreement with farmers of Ippapally, Potpally, Ganeshpur, Shashallapur, Arjun Naik Tanda and Lacha Naik tanda, here on Saturday, invested ₹10,000 per acre and in return would get crop worth the amount at the time of harvest.
Some 65 consumers travelled over 100 km from Hyderabad on bus on Saturday to see the fields in which they would be investing, to interact with the women farmers that would cultivate the land, the seeds they sow and the methods they follow in farming. The consumers were from Hyderabad-based Disha Consumer Movement while the farmers are active members of the Deccan Development Society (DDS) based at Pastapur.
In today’s hectic world, most working professionals go through an emotional roller coaster at the offices. Long hours, tight deadlines, and ever-increasing client demands lead to constant stress at work and take a toll on an employee’s performance and productivity, in turn, impacting their physical and emotional health. There are umpteen ways to de-stress and bolster one’s well-being in and out of the workplace. Stress busting programs and initiatives at the workplace are essential and do wonders for working professionals. It is believed that employees who work in offices that are well connected with nature have proven to be more productive at work. Being connected with plants has proven to be therapeutic and helps in keeping an individual’s mind calm and decompresses the person after a long week at work.
Pioneering the responsibility towards contributing to a green society, K Raheja Corp, encouraged by Group President Ravi Raheja signed a memorandum of understanding with the CII-Green Building Council to construct green buildings back in 2007. Apart from building green edifices and communities, the Company initiates several activities in the green space, which allow for its dwellers to come closer to nature.
KOCHI: Paucity of cultivable land is a major issue in Kerala but the state seemed to be catching on with an organic farming revolution with 13,519.3 hectares of land already under organic farming and 10,972. 6 hectares under conversion for organic farming.
As per the latest data with Union Agriculture Ministry, Kerala has 619 farmer clusters which have taken up organic farming and is ahead of Karnataka with 545 clusters and Tamil Nadu 112 clusters.It’s also surprising to note that the 619 farmer clusters have covered an area of 12,380 hectares while Karnataka has only 10,900 hectares and Tamil Nadu 2240 hectares under organic farming.The data also shows that 30,950 farmers in Kerala have benefitted from Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana (PKVY) scheme between 2015 and 2018 and received Rs 50,000 per hectare.
The year was 1994, and organic farming hadn’t caught up in India. But one panchayat in Kerala went ahead and advocated the practice to its villagers, in the hope of making them self-reliant. Now it is 2018, and Kanjikuzhi, located on the shore of the Arabian Sea, is the only vegetable-sufficient panchayat in the state, and a prize-winning template for regions around the country.
“Every household in Kanjikuzhi grows its own vegetables,” said panchayat president MG Raju. “We don’t need to buy vegetables from the market at all. People here use what they need and sell the surplus, so pensioners, homemakers, everyone has some income”.
The panchayat grows 19 types of vegetables, including beans, lady’s finger, cabbage, green chilli, bitter gourd, snake gourd, cucumber, cauliflower, brinjal and cheera, a variety of spinach with beetroot-red leaves. “Last year, we grew 40,000 tonnes of vegetables,” said Raju.
With the dedicated efforts of teachers and students alike, the once barren land is now a veritable farm that grows vegetables like brinjal, bottle gourd, spinach, coriander, cucumber, and ridge gourd as well as fruits like banana and papaya.
Several educational institutions across India are going green and introducing intensive environment-centric initiatives which set the right example for children and help them to reconnect with nature.
An exceptional example amidst these schools and colleges is the 108-year-old government higher primary school in Mittur village near Mangaluru. Stretching across 4.5 acres, the area around the school once used to be barren and unused.
With the dedicated efforts of teachers and students alike, the barren land has been transformed into a veritable farm that harvests a yield amounting to approximately ₹3-4 lakh per year!
Hoshiarpur: Progressive farmer of backward Kandi area of Hoshiarpur district, Parlad Singh from Namolihar village, has become a role model for others by adopting organic farming. Beginning in 1998 with the cultivation of his 7 acres of ancestral land, he is now successfully practising diversified organic farming. He has been earning a much greater deal as compared to traditional wheat-paddy farming.
Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh met his Nepalese counterpart Chakra Pani Khanal and assured full support for the growth of agriculture sector in the neighbouring country. Khanal, the minister for agriculture, land management and cooperatives in Nepal government, met Singh in the national capital, an official statement said.
Singh assured his Nepalese counterpart of “India’s support to further Nepal’s agriculture sector”.
Have you ever come across a farmer in India who wants his son to become a farmer? If not, then we would like you to meet Ashok Rameshwar Panwar, who wishes for his son to become a farmer one day.
A farmer from Rijgaon village in Dewas district of Madhya Pradesh, Ashok was so passionate about farming that he stopped going to school after class 10 and took up the responsibility of his ancestral farm.
Gangtok Organic farming, the brainchild of Sikkim Chief Minister Pawan Chamling, how has more takers. Bihar now wants to introduce organic farming, using the system of Sikkim as the model.
Bihar Agriculture Minister Prem Kumar, along with a high-level officers from the state, visited the ICAR-National Organic Farming Research Institute, Tadong, last week to know more about the Sikkim experience, said a PIB release in Gangtok on Monday.
Prem Kumar wanted to know from scientists at the institute the specific options available for the adoption of the Sikkim model in Bihar and instructed his officers for adoption of principles and practices of organic farming that had been followed by the ICAR-NOFRI in Sikkim for the promotion of organic farming in Bihar.
Nabha, Jun 17 Deepak Gupta left behind the comforts of his promising international career in Singapore to pursue his dream back home. He says he is a happy man now.
Gupta, who spent nearly 30 years in Singapore working at a global company connecting the food chain system after completing studies at DAV College in Chandigarh, wanted to set up a technology-enabled modern dairy farm in Punjab.
Two years after his return from Singapore, he has achieved his objective by setting up the Himalayan Creamery in Nabha, a historic city in Patiala district about a two-hour drive from Chandigarh.
MARQUETTE — Kyle Garner, CEO of Organic India and a leading advocate for regenerative organic agriculture, will be the featured speaker when the Grain Place will host its 25th annual Farm Tour and Field Day on Saturday, July 14.
Organic India is a leading mission-driven manufacturer of herb-based teas and supplements. Since 1999, Organic India has worked directly with thousands of family farmers in India, creating sustainable communities through fair-market agriculture, access to health care, education and gender equality and empowerment programs.
Hyderabad: A portrait of Mahatma Gandhi with a word of advice — Be the change that you want to see in the world — is neatly placed in one of the shelves, the smiling face of the ‘Father of Nation’ hiding behind awards and citations. A few works of rural art from Odisha gaily adorn walls. Some thematic paintings by the Australian Aborigines, a few figurines, small art objects, handcrafted jewellery made out of rice husk, a tiny bundle of organically harvested paddy enclosed in wooden frames capturing the rhythm of rural life. Aesthetics pervade the room, something uncommon in the office space of an agriculture scientist.
New Delhi: The 20-year-old French woman who had been missing for nearly two weeks from Rajasthan has been found alive in Alwar. Gaelle Chouteau had reached Puskhar on May 30 where she stayed in a hotel in ‘Holi Ka chowk’ area before leaving for Jaipur on June 1. She was reported missing since then.
Ms Chouteau was in Saarkela village of Alwar where she was learning organic farming. The investigation team heaved a sigh of relief after an officer from the Pushkar police station informed on her whereabouts.
Vijaywada/New Delhi: About three years ago, Pawan Kumar, working as an IT professional at Hyderabad, decided to quit his job and return to his village to become a farmer. His father, a small farmer in West Godavari district, tried to discourage him but Kumar who had read about a new method of “natural farming” would not listen.
“My mother cried a lot… they told me no girl would marry a farmer but I am happy I came back. My father was initially reluctant to let me farm even an acre, but now he has allowed me to convert all five acres to natural farming,” says Kumar, 26.
Kumar is among 163,034 farmers in Andhra Pradesh practising zero-budget natural farming or ZBNF, where chemical fertilizers and pesticides make way for locally available cow dung and cow urine, jaggery and pulse flour. These are used to make a fermented culture which stimulates microbial activity in the soil, promoting better plant growth and protect crops against pest attacks
Amritsar, June 13 Lok Sabha MP Gurjeet Singh Aujla on Wednesday started a plantation drive at Mudhal village, adopted by him under the Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana (SAGY).
The MP was in the village to attend a farmer training camp. The camp was attended by 50 farmers from the village. The camp was organised with assistance of Chief Agriculture Officer Dr Dalbir Singh Chhinna and Dr Chandra Shekhar, Junior Scientific Officer, Regional Centre of Organic Farming, Panchkula.
Udhampur (Jammu and Kashmir) [India], Jun 14 : Taking a cue from their Bageshwar counterparts, farmers in Chaintal village in Jammu and Kashmir’s Udhampur district have taken inspiration from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s words of adopting organic farming and have now joined hands, earning pints of money.
In his monthly ‘Mann Ki Baat’ radio address, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in April lauded the efforts of farmers in Uttarakhand’s Bageshwar district for undertaking organic farming in their area.
The Prime Minister also urged others to take inspiration from the Bageshwar farmers. Further, he said that the income of farmers would be doubled by 2022.
Ludhiana, June 11 Like humans and animals, nutrient rich diet also plays a pivotal role in development of plants. Experts believe that soil health has been badly affected by intensive agriculture and introduction of high yielding crop varieties.
Farmers often use chemical fertilizers, which increase micronutrient deficiency and affects soil structure.
According to experts at the Punjab Agricultural University, organic matter plays an important role in maintaining fertility of soil.
It was his ardent love for plants and trees that turned Babu Rajshekar from a management background to organic farming.
Strawberry-flavoured products are a rage across the world, especially when it comes to confectionaries and fruit-based items. Be it ice-creams, cakes, desserts, toffees or even infant food, the intense love for the pint-sized fragrant berry ensures that there is a strawberry-flavoured version for all of them.
Scientifically, though, it would be incorrect to categorise strawberries under berries or even fruits for that matter. In fact, the pinprick-sized seeds that you find on a strawberry are actually the fruits while the fleshy part is derived from the receptacle holding the ovaries of the strawberry runners.
Juhi Chawla Mehta, who is the crusader for organic produce, has sent mangoes from Yahvi farm in Maharashtra to all her friends in Bollywood. The actor, who is passionate about saving the environment and sticking to eco-friendly produce, has sent a small note with each of her mango boxes saying — “Nothing spells summer indulgence like mangoes.”
Juhi doesn’t believe in just indulging her friends. She also educates them and encourages them to practice organic farming by asking them to use neem-based pesticides and natural manure.
In a bid to ensure that farmers of Sikkim benefit from the facilities available at Kissan Bazar near Lal Market Traffic point, the Department of Horticulture and Cash Crop Development on Sunday issued identity cards to them. This is the second phase of distribution of identification cards.
Zilla Adhyaksha East Samsher Rai handed over identity cards to the farmers, in the presence of Mayor GMC Shakti Singh Choudhary, Secretary Horticulture Khorlo Bhutia and MD SIMFED Mr Pawan Awasthy.
Margao: Agriculture Minister Vijai Sardessai has revealed that the government was in the process of working out a scheme to set up a co-operative society that would provide implements to farmers to go for mechanised farming and said he would appoint one officer to handle this specifically.
Speaking at a function held to distribute paddy grains to farmer from Fatorda he said the government was also in the process of amending the existing scheme providing subsidy to purchase agricultural implements.
VADODARA: He heads one of the oldest engineering firms in the state. But that hasn’t deterred Rahul Amin, CMD of Jyoti Ltd, from pursuing his passion. Amin has been into organic farming for decades. He grows many vegetables in the backyard of his spacious bungalow in Bhayli.