inside spices research news innovations biodiversity climate change

Transcription

AGRI Titbits
08 : 03 M arch
2016
Agri Titbits is an
effort to collect
and preserve
agricultural news,
especially spices,
appearing in
newspapers and
INSIDE
SPICES
online media.
published by
Dr. M Anandaraj
compiled &
prepared by
Jayarajan K
Ramesh Kumar P
ICAR-Indian
Institute of Spices
Research,
Kozhikode
RESEARCH NEWS
INNOVATIONS
BIODIVERSITY
CLIMATE CHANGE
ORGANIC FARMING
GENERAL
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Spices
Humble Haldi Can Help Fight Deadly Tuberculosis
Unveiling the Health Benefits of Fennel Seeds
ICAR award for nutmeg farmer
GM mustard to be Centre’s acid test for commercial use of GM crops
Indian Condiments are Spicing Up Global Cuisine
Why vanilla is losing its flavour
Gujarat to get Spices Park soon
Research News
Berries, grapes and apples: Your allies in the fight against cancer
Blueberries may help beat Alzheimer’s: study
Innovations
Scientists closer to finding key to converting algae to biofuel
Renewable plastic made from carbon dioxide and plants
Generating electricity with tomato waste
Biodiversity
Drastic decline of the flora biodiversity at the cultivated fields of Catalonia
Sorghum: Not so ho-hum
Climate Change
NASA: February smashes global temperature record
Impact of climate change on agriculture may be underestimated'
Organic Farming
Gujarat govt to set up varsity for organic farming
Ludhiana farmer hosts ‘organic langar ‘ to mark Sikh Environment Day
First organic farming university to be set up in Gujarat
Beating malnutrition with organic farming
Craving nutrition: How 6 entrepreneurs took to organic farming in Noida
General
ICAR head calls for more investment in public research
Bt cotton row: Monsanto threatens to re-evaluate India biz
Fertiliser subsidy bill set to reduce by Rs 10,000 crore next fiscal: Crisil
Denied space in cold stores, Doaba potato growers left in the lurch
Indian Science Congress meet from today
Waterless in Marathwada: Farm crisis is extra hard on women
In times of unpredictable weather, ‘precise farming’ comes to aid
Week-Long 'Festival Of Innovations' Kicks Off At Rashtrapati Bhavan
Herbicides remain a bright spot for agrochemical firms
Two-day seminar on food security in India: ‘Gap between demand for food and food producing
resources increasing’
‘Grow in India’ call by Vice President to transform agriculture sector
Use technology, water conservation: PM Modi to farmers in ‘Man ki Baat’
Technology and Agriculture: Messed in India!
‘New technologies in agriculture should be affordable’
A new paradigm for agriculture?
Malayalam News
IISR in Print
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Humble Haldi Can Help Fight Deadly Tuberculosis
NDTV / 25 March 2016
New York: Turmeric, an essential
ingredient that spices up a curry, may help
fight drug-resistant tuberculosis, new
research has found.
Turmeric is already used to treat many
health conditions and it has antiinflammatory, antioxidant and perhaps
even anti-cancer properties, the study
pointed out.
Researchers have now found that by stimulating human immune cells called
macrophages, curcumin - a substance in turmeric -- was able to successfully remove
Mycobacterium tuberculosis, the causative bacterium of tuberculosis (TB), from
experimentally infected cells in culture.
The process relied on inhibiting the activation of a cellular molecule called nuclear factorkappa B.
"Our study has provided basic evidence that curcumin protects against Mycobacterium
tuberculosis infection in human cells," said lead author of the study Xiyuan Bai from the
University of Colorado School of Medicine in the US.
The findings appeared in the journal Respirology.
The ability of curcumin to modulate the immune response to Mycobacterium tuberculosis
points to a potential new tuberculosis treatment that would be less prone to the
development of drug resistance.
"The protective role of curcumin to fight drug-resistant tuberculosis still needs
confirmation, but if validated, curcumin may become a novel treatment to modulate the
host immune response to overcome drug-resistant tuberculosis," Mr Bai noted.
Unveiling the Health Benefits of Fennel Seeds
India is the largest exporter of fennel seeds,
widely known as saunf. A common practice in
most Indian households is to have few fennel
seeds or saunf at the end of every meal. This
practice you might think is to freshen the
mouth, but think again. A concentrated source
of minerals like Copper, Potassium, Calcium,
Zinc, Manganese , Vitamin C, Iron, Selenium and
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Magnesium, the age old practice does much more than simply beat bad breath.
Benefits of Fennel Seeds:
1. Helps Regulate Blood Pressure - A study published in the Journal of Food Science,
found that chewing on fennel seeds helped increased the nitrite content in saliva, making
it a great natural way to keep a check on blood pressure levels. Apart from this, fennel
seeds are also a very rich source of potassium and since potassium is an essential
component of cells and body fluids, it helps control your heart rate and blood pressure.
2. Reduce Water Retention - Drinking fennel tea, regularly helps flush out excess fluids
as it works as a diuretic. In addition, fennel seed helps remove toxins and reduces the risk
of urinary tract problems. It also has diaphoretic properties that stimulate perspiration.
3. Fennel Tea for Constipation, Indigestion, IBS & Bloating - The tea is considered
very useful to help indigestion, bloating and constipation because of the oils found in
these seeds. Fennel seeds contain estragole, fenchone and anethole, which contribute to
the plant's antispasmodic and anti-inflammatory properties. For those with IBS, the
volatile oils found in fennel seeds can help kick start digestion by promoting the
production of gastric enzymes. For its multitude of gastrointestinal benefits, fennel tea is
sure to help the digestive tract be healthy and happy.
4. Fennel Seeds Reduce Asthma Symptoms - Fennel seeds and their phytonutrients
help clear sinuses. They make a great tea to aid with bronchitis, congestion and cough as
they have expectorant properties.
5. Helps Purify Blood- The essential oils and fiber in these seeds are considered very
useful to flush out toxins and sludge from our bodies, thus helping to cleanse the blood.
6. Improves Eyesight- Fennel seeds contain Vitamin A, which is important for eyesight.
In ancient India, extracts of these seeds were used to improve the symptoms of glaucoma.
7. According to Ayurveda - Fennel seeds reduce all 3 Trodosha (Vata, Pita, Kapha). The
seeds have a cooling effect on the body. It is
a good idea to consume a fennel seed drink
during the scorching summer, to relieve
heat from the body. The oil found in the
seeds is carminative in nature, hence it is
used in massage blends, especially in
Ayurveda to calm the nerves and promote
mental clarity.
8. Great for Acne - When fennel seeds are
eaten on a regular basis, they provide the body with valuable minerals like zinc, calcium
and selenium. These minerals are very helpful to balance hormones and in helping up the
oxygen balance. When consumed, fennel has a cooling impact on the skin, hence giving a
healthy glow.
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9. Keeps Cancer Away - The seeds also have very powerful free radical scavenging
properties that help beat oxidative stress and protects the body from various cancers of
the skin, stomach and breasts. Fennel seeds have a very potent chemo modulatory effect
too.
In Ayurveda, fennel seeds are considered very auspicious. They were extensively used in
various recipes in ancient India. The age-old secrets of health can be found in the simplest
ingredients in our kitchens. We just need to unveil them.
ICAR award for nutmeg farmer
The Hindu / 28 March 2016
Sachidanandan Velliyath, a 65-year-old farmer from North Aduvassery, Ernakulam, won
the prestigious Innovative Farmer Award of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research
(ICAR).
He received the award from Union Minister for Agriculture Radha Mohan Singh on March
21 at New Delhi during the National Agricultural Fair - Krishi Unnati (Pusa Krishi Vigyan
Mela), said a press release here.
Development of a nutmeg decorticator, a devise to de-shell the nutmeg seeds, made him
eligible for the award.
Since manual nutmeg de-shelling is laborious, it was not economical to produce kernel
though it fetched double the price. The issue could be solved with the introduction of the
new machine. The capacity of the nutmeg decorticator, powered by a 0.5 HP electric
motor, is 150 kg per hour and costs Rs.28,000.
More than 140 farmers in Kerala and parts of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka have purchased
this machine.
The Krishi Vigyan Kendra - Ernakulam of CMFRI had selected Mr. Velliyath as the Best
Innovator and was recommended for the prestigious award, the press release added.
He got the award for developing a devise to de-shell the nutmeg seeds.
GM mustard to be Centre’s acid test for commercial use
of GM crops
Hindustan Times / 15 March 2016
The Centre is looking to garner support from
states in pushing genetically modified food
crops to revive the agriculture sector using
GM mustard as a test case.
Around half the Indian states have refused to
give no-objection certificates for conducting
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field trials of genetically modified (GM) seeds – a must before getting final approval for
commercial use. This has slowed down the development of bio-technology in agriculture
to a large extent.
The move comes at the time when agriculture economy is in crises due to unseasonal
rainfall in March-April for second year in a row and two drought years. The National
Institution for Transforming India (NITI) Aayog believes GM crops, along with an increase
in area of irrigation through the Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sanchayi Yojana, will answer
India’s agrarian crises.
The body was tasked by the Prime Minister’s Office to build consensus among states, and
a report was expected by February end. However it failed to do so, and has been given
more time to get state administrations on board.
“The last government always spoke about benefits of GM crops but didn’t do much to
benefit from it. It (UPA) got bogged down by undue pressure of activists and was not able
to convince the states about its benefits. We want the states to realise its gains,” said a
senior NITI Aayog functionary.
The functionary added that getting states to support GM Mustard – being considered by
Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee for final approval – will be a test for the future
of GM crops in India. The committee is expected to take over a year to come out with its
final conclusion.
“We want to convince the states that GM Mustard can improve productivity and reduce
our dependence on import of oil seeds,” the official said.
NITI Aayog had in December 2015 come out with a paper supporting GM crop technology,
in which it said the GM seeds have emerged as a “powerful new technology promising
high productivity and lower use of fertilizers, weedicides and pesticides in the last one to
two decades”. Claiming that they have gained increasing acceptance among farmers
around the world, the paper said, “They (GM seeds) are likely to play increasingly
important role in addressing many of the current problems in agriculture.”
However, states remain unconvinced.
Anti-GM activists added to predicament as they said the claimed benefits of GM mustard
are highly exaggerated.
“By comparing results (of GM mustard) with very old checks or comparators, the crop
developers are trying to show exaggerated benefits,” Sharad Pawar, a fellow of the
National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS), said at a briefing organised by antiGM crop campaigners in Delhi last week. “The tests do not conform to Indian Council for
Agriculture Research (ICAR) protocols.”
NITI Aayog remains unfazed by the campaigners, who in a detailed presentation before
the task force in 2015, stated that GM crops created a monopoly for companies promoting
GM seeds instead of benefiting farmers.
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Indian Condiments are Spicing Up Global Cuisine
The use of Indian condiments, or masalas is
increasingly becoming popular in various
global cuisines. The ingredients used in
Indian cuisine are unique and their mixing
is an art mastered in the subcontinent over
centuries.
In the olden days when there were no
refrigeration techniques, the use of spices
in dishes also acted like preservatives. When the Europeans came to the Indian
subcontinent, they soon discovered local spices and were impressed with the aromas and
tastes. They took them back home and soon the demand in Europe sky-rocketed.
At one time, the cost of spices was more than that of gold and precious stones and it was
one of their most profitable trades. The use of Indian spices in the West gradually became
popular but not in the mainstream dishes.
Recently, with increasing globalization of trade and communications, Indian cuisine
traveled across the world.
The word spices have been used as a misnomer to describe hot food. In actual terms,
spices provide different aromas and flavours. The hotness of the food comes from green,
red, yellow chilies and black peppers.
The surge in Indian restaurants across Europe and the US has helped the spread of Indian
aromas and tastes. The culinary world is rapidly advancing in both techniques and
different flavours. Increasingly, the chefs are mixing flavours and ingredients from
different regions of the world.
This phenomenon has created fusion cuisine. As the world discovers distinct flavours and
spices, chefs are not inhibited in experimenting with the spices. Thus, fusion food has
taken another dimension in the culinary world. Indo-French, Indo-American and IndoChinese restaurants are sprouting all over the world.
The masala chaionce exclusive to India is one such example which is a popular drink in
Europe and the US. A high-end chain in the US named Teavana extensively sells spice chai,
maharaja chai and Ayurvedic chai. The spices used include cloves, cinnamon, cardamom,
garam masala and other ingredients.
Cinnamon is commonly used in tea, coffee and confectionery across the world. It's use in
meat dishes is popular now in the Western hemisphere. I have seen its use in African
cuisine along with cumin seeds and bay leaves. Black pepper ha been quite popular as a
table top condiment but its popularity in the dishes for cooking and marinating meat has
increased significantly. Clove oil and cloves are now used as flavouring agents in various
South American cuisines as well.
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Of late, there has been a surge in the use of
turmeric across the world. Once an
exclusive Indian spice, turmeric is now
available as capsules and consumed raw
for medicinal purposes. Although this has
been the practice in India for centuries
and is a common ingredient in almost all
dishes in India, turmeric and milk is now
popularized in food shows across the US
as an exotic drink. Various food shows in
the West are showing use of turmeric in various meat dishes in the West.
Marinating meat and poultry is commonly done with Indian spices. The traditional Indian
garam masala is available extensively across the super markets across Europe and USA.
During my stays in the US, I have seen the use of Indian condiments in Thai as well as
Italian cuisines. Ethiopian cuisine is heavily influenced by these spices especially in
kababs.
The kebabs in Middle Eastern cuisine have similar reflections. Recently, an Anthony
Bourdain show revealed that Iranian cuisine was immensely influenced by Indian spices
too. Indian spices have always influenced Middle Eastern cuisine. The spice trade from
16-18th century left a trace of spices all throughout the route.
Bay leaves, once an exotic addition to Indian recipes, is now being grown in households
in the world and used for aroma in African, English and French cuisines. Coriander leaves
and seeds have their counterparts in other cuisines but are now used for garnishing
entrees and appetizers.
There has been an increasing evidence of health benefits of herbs and spices as well.
Various spices have plant-derived chemical compounds that have disease preventing and
health promoting properties. Certain spices could provide antioxidants that are
important in combating disease and improving immunity.
The anti platelets and clot prevention properties of some of the spices may explain the
lower incidence of venous clotting of the legs in the Indian subcontinent.
Spices have been used since ancient times for their anti-inflammatory and anti-flatulent
properties. Turmeric has been used over wounds swollen and painful joints and is now
proposed to reduce the post menopausal symptoms. Its cholesterol lowering properties
have been reported too. Clove oil and dentistry is another example.
It has also been proposed that spices may reduce the incidence of certain cancers. With
the renewed interest in spices around the world and changing palates I'm not surprised
that Indian spices are increasingly used all over the world in various cuisines.
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Why vanilla is losing its flavour
Live Mint / 29 March 2016
The price of the bean used to flavour everything from ice cream and chocolate to
cola and pastries more than tripled in the past year as output slipped and quality
suffered.
Nairobi/Antananarivo: There’s nothing plain
about the vanilla market. The price of the bean
used to flavour everything from ice cream and
chocolate to cola and pastries more than
tripled in the past year as output slipped and
quality suffered. That should have been a boon
for top producer Madagascar, the island nation
off Africa’s southeast coast. Instead, the
government is imposing measures to improve
supply and quality to protect its market share.
At a time when Nestle SA and Whole Foods Market Inc. are using more natural flavors in
food products, vanilla demand is growing, particularly in developing countries. But a
prolonged price slump led to smaller global harvests. And in Madagascar, which supplies
half the world’s beans, farmers took short-cuts in the process used to create the aromatic
qualities prized by consumers.
“The branding of Madagascar vanilla in the international market is threatened,”
Commerce Minister Henri Rabesahala said in a telephone interview from the capital,
Antannaarivo.
Low-Cost grower
In recent years, after a decade of low vanilla prices, production declined in places like
China, Indonesia and Uganda as farmers switched to other crops and inventories shrank,
data from the United Nations Food & Agriculture Organization show. Madagascar
remained a low-cost supplier because the labor- intensive harvesting and curing of
vanilla remained mostly profitable with workers paid $1.50 a day, compared with $10
elsewhere, according to Cook Flavoring Co., a US processor that buys from several
countries.
As prices improved, growers in Madagascar started harvesting more pods sooner than
normal and packaging them in vacuum-sealed containers rather than curing and drying
them. This was partly to avoid theft, but also to capitalize on the rally. The packaging gave
wholesalers the flexibility to wait for higher prices as global supply shrank. But because
the beans were so immature, they hadn’t fully developed the compound—vanillin—
responsible for all the flavour and aroma. It was almost like picking wine grapes before
their time.
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Rosewood smugglers
Compounding the problem was money laundering linked to illegal exports of rosewood,
according to the government. The red-hued timber is prized by manufacturers of luxury
furniture and musical instruments, mostly in China. Since the government banned
unlicensed logging in 2010, traffickers have used their illegal proceeds to buy green
vanilla from local farmers that can be sold legally to generate dollar income, according to
Rabesahala. Most didn’t care that they were buying immature, vacuum-packed beans.
With a smaller Madagascar crop last year and fewer good- quality beans, prices surged in
the US, the world’s biggest buyer, where vanilla ice cream remains the most-popular
flavour. Higher-end vanilla fetches $250 a kilogram—if you can find it—compared with
$80 a year earlier and $20 as recently as 2012, according to Cook Flavoring, which gets
80% of its supply from Madagascar. Even lower-grade beans sell for $210, up from $60 a
year earlier.
Dairies and bakeries are balking at the increases, and some are switching from purevanilla extracts and powders to cheaper alternatives, like synthetics, and products
blended with lower- grade beans or those made with natural ingredients that mimic the
flavor of vanillin, said Josephine Lochhead, president of Cook Flavoring, which her
grandfather founded in 1918.
“There’s a limit to what people will pay for natural vanilla and we’re nearing that point,”
Lochhead said by telephone from Paso Robles, California.
Higher prices also pose a risk for Madagascar, which got $280 million in foreign-exchange
earnings from vanilla in 2014, second only to nickel mining, which generated $1.47
billion, according to central bank data. Competing growers like Indonesia, China and
Uganda may expand output and gain market share.
“In India, for example, the last couple of years, they’ve been planting like crazy,” said
David van der Walde, director of Montreal, Canada-based vanilla distributor Aust &
Hachmann (Canada) Ltd.
Burning beans
To discourage lower-grade beans, Madagascar agreed this month to block exports of
immature green vanilla, imposed a ban on vacuum-packed pods and increased the power
of local security organizations to act against transgressors. In recent weeks, the
government burned hundreds of kilograms of seized green vanilla, Rabesahala said.
Vanilla didn’t originate in Madagascar. The Aztecs were the first to cultivate it in what is
now Mexico, where vanilla was mixed with cocoa to make chocolate eaten mostly by
aristocrats. Early Spanish explorers initially thought it was a perfume—a use that
continues today—and began exporting it to Europe. The plant would only grow in Mexico
because its pollination was dependent on a type of bee unique to the country.
That changed in the 19th century when a manual pollinating technique was developed
for the vine-like orchid. But it remained labour intensive because the flowers only bloom
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for a one day per season, requiring workers to tramp through the jungle looking for
blossoms.
More supply
High prices may not last. With the rally in its fourth year, more production is on the way,
and Madagascar will harvest a bigger crop this year than last, in keeping with the plant’s
biennial cycle, said Lochhead at the Cook Flavoring. In 2002, prices fell from more than
$500 to $15 in just a few months, once it became clear supplies were increasing, she said.
This year’s harvest in Madagascar, which begins in July, probably will rise to about 2,000
tons from about 1,200 to 1,600 tons in 2015, according to Rabesahala, the commerce
minister.
The country’s National Vanilla Platform, a government and industry body created in
December, is preparing an inventory of an estimated 100,000 growers, as well as
collectors and exporters, as it prepares to ensure the quality of the crop when it reaches
the world market later this year.
“We are very serious about this,” Rabesahala said. “We’re not joking. We don’t want to to
jeopardize the next campaign. Bloomberg
Gujarat to get Spices Park soon
TNN / 01 March 2016
AHMEDABAD: Soon, producers and traders of spices in the state will be able to process,
test and export spices from Gujarat itself. Spices Board of India (SBI) is in the process of
setting up long-awaited Spices Park in Mehsana near Unjha and a quality evaluation lab
for spices near Kandla port. According to the SBI officials, these measures will lead to shift
in exports of spices from Mumbai to Gujarat. There are currently six spices parks
operational in the country and three more are likely to come up in Raebareli (UP), Kota
(Rajasthan) and Mehsana.
Berries, grapes and apples: Your allies in the fight
against cancer
Despite major advancements in methods
of treatment, cancer continues to be the
most dreaded disease in the world, with
its very name evoking the image of
impending disaster. Ironically, even the
chemo and radiation which are the
established cures come with a plethora of
side-effects. Not only does the patient lose
hair, but also strength, vitality and
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immunity. One needs every ounce of energy one can marshal to survive this scourge.
Cancer patients have to make sure that they eat what empowers them and totally avoid
what weakens them. So every morsel that goes past their lips must be a friend instead of
a foe.
Some of the best food items for them are:
Grapes: Both grapes and grape juice are rich sources of resveratrol, a type of natural
phytochemical. In laboratory studies, resveratrol prevents the kind of damage known to
trigger the cancer process in cell, tissue and animal models.
Resveratrol also slows the growth of cancer cells and inhibits the formation of tumors in
lymph, liver, stomach and breast cells. It triggers the death of leukemic and colon cancer
tumours and blocks the development of skin, breast and leukemia cancers. Black grapes
are particularly good. Make sure that the grapes are pesticide-free. Sorry but wine doesn’t
qualify.
Apples: Apple peels have potent antioxidant and antiproliferative effects on human
cancer cells in a petri dish. They work best against estrogen receptor negative breast
cancer, which is much harder to treat than estrogen receptor positive breast cancer.
Ginger: It forces cancer cells to commit suicide in a process called apoptosis. The beauty
is that it leaves the healthy cells around them unharmed. Trials on ovarian cells in lab
animals have been very encouraging.
Garlic: Its pungent cloves too have a similar impact, particularly in gastrointestinal
cancers.
Turmeric (haldi): Curcumin in the spice interferes with the cell-signalling pathways,
making it impossible for cancer cells to grow and spread.
Leafy greens and cruciferous vegetables: When chewed, these release antioxidant
sulforaphane that not only prevents but also fights colon and prostate cancers. However,
guard against overcooking.
Berries: DNA mutation and cancer are caused by oxidation. Blueberries, strawberries,
raspberries and blackberries fight it valiantly.
Green and black tea: These have antioxidant kaempferol which has proved promising
especially in the battle against breast cancer. Brew your own teas. Bottled ones (iced tea)
are not that good.
Tomatoes: These are teeming with lycopene antioxidant which is most effective on
prostate cancer. The patients should procure all the needed vitamins and minerals
through whole foods instead of supplements. B-complex vitamins can be had from whole
grains, spinach, peanuts, dried beans or peas and fresh oranges. Spend at least 30 minutes
thrice a week or more in gentle sun and consume sufficient quantity of mushrooms,
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fortified almond milk, cheese, cereals, spinach, potatoes, orange juice and soy yoghurt for
Vitamin D. If non-vegetarian, go for eggs and fish.
Now the foods that have to be shunned. The first item is man-made sugar. Eating sugar
leads to the production of insulin, a hormone that the body utilises to regulate sugar
levels, metabolism and cell growth.
Unfortunately, cancer cells also grow, multiply and spread using insulin as fuel. The more
insulin you have in the body, the more cancer will thrive, says CEO of Memorial SloanKettering Cancer Center Craig Thompson.
This finding is confirmed by a University Rey Juan scientist Custodia Garcia-Jimenez who
wrote in a recent article: “We are surprised to realise that changes in our metabolism
caused by dietary sugar impact our cancer risk. Changing diet is one of the easiest
prevention strategies that can potentially save a lot of suffering and money.”
Also cut down red meats and saturated fats drastically, if not completely.
Blueberries may help beat Alzheimer’s: study
Researcher says the 'super fruit ' can have a real benefit in improving memory
and cognitive function in some older adults
Eating blueberries, the well-known ‘super
fruit’, may not only lower the risk of heart
disease and cancer, but also provide protection
against Alzheimer’s disease, a new study has
claimed.
The fruit is loaded with healthful antioxidants,
and these substances could help prevent the
devastating effects of this increasingly common
form of dementia, researchers said.
Wonder berry
“Our new findings corroborate those of previous animal studies and preliminary human
studies, adding further support to the notion that blueberries can have a real benefit in
improving memory and cognitive function in some older adults,” said Robert Krikorian
from University of Cincinnati in the U.S.
Blueberries’ beneficial effects could be due to flavonoids called anthocyanins, which have
been shown to improve animals’ cognition, he said.
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Two human studies conducted
Researchers conducted two human studies to follow up on earlier clinical trials. One
study involved 47 adults aged 68 and older, who had mild cognitive impairment, a risk
condition for Alzheimer’s disease.
Scientists gave them either freeze-dried blueberry powder, which is equivalent to a cup
of berries, or a placebo powder once a day for 16 weeks.
Improved memory
“There was improvement in cognitive performance and brain function in those who had
the blueberry powder compared with those who took the placebo. The blueberry group
demonstrated improved memory and improved access to words and concepts,” said Mr.
Krikorian.
Researchers also conducted functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which
showed increased brain activity in those who ingested the blueberry powder.
And the placebo group …
The second study included 94 people aged 62 to 80, who were divided into four groups.
The participants did not have objectively measured cognitive issues, but they subjectively
felt their memories were declining.
The groups received blueberry powder, fish oil, fish oil and powder or placebo.
“The results were not as robust as with the first study. Cognition was somewhat better
for those with powder or fish oil separately, but there was little improvement with
memory,” said Mr. Krikorian.
Also, fMRI results were not as striking for those receiving blueberry powder. The effect
may have been smaller in this case because these participants had less severe issues
when they entered the study, researchers said.
Scientists closer to finding key to converting algae to
biofuel
Science Daily / 09 March 2016
University of Florida Institute of Food and
Agricultural Sciences researchers may have
found a key to converting algae to fuel.
The scientists have found what researchers call
a "transcription factor," called ROC40. Bala
Rathinasabapathi, a UF/IFAS professor of
horticultural sciences, likened a transcription
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factor's role in controlling the expression of many genes inside the algae cells to a
policeman controlling a large crowd.
To draw lipids out of algae, scientists must starve the algae of nitrogen. Among the
hundreds of proteins modulated by nitrogen starvation, the synthesis ROC40 was the
most induced when the cells made the most oil. The high induction of that protein
suggested to scientists that it could be playing an important biological role, said Elton
Gonçalves, a former UF/IFAS doctoral student in the plant molecular and cellular biology
program. In fact, the team's research showed that ROC40 helps control lipid production
when the algal cells were starved of nitrogen.
"Our discovery about the ROC40 protein suggests that it may be increasing the expression
of genes involved in the synthesis of oil in microalgae," Rathinasabapathi said.
"Such information is of great importance for the development of superior strains of algae
for biofuel production," Gonçalves said. "We conducted this research due to the great
socioeconomic importance of developing renewable sources of fuels as alternatives for
petroleum-based fuels for future generations. In order to advance the production of algal
biofuels into a large-scale, competitive scenario, it is fundamental that the biological
processes in these organisms are well understood."
Rathinasabapathi said this information is valuable for the future for engineering algae so
it overproduces oil without starving the algae of nitrogen.
Lipids from microalgae provide an excellent renewable source for biofuels. The algae
grow quickly, tolerate extreme weather conditions and do not pose the same issues as
biofuel crops that are grown both for fuel and food.
The rub was if algae are deprived of nitrogen, the cells become stressed and begin to
produce lipids, but their growth rate slows. And if alga is going to become a commercially
viable fuel source, scientists must ensure that not only can it produce as much oil as
possible, but also that it can grow as fast as possible.
Renewable plastic made from carbon dioxide and
plants
Stanford scientists have discovered a novel
way to make plastic from carbon dioxide
(CO2) and inedible plant material, such as
agricultural waste and grasses. Researchers
say the new technology could provide a lowcarbon alternative to plastic bottles and other
items currently made from petroleum.
"Our goal is to replace petroleum-derived
products with plastic made from CO2," said
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Matthew Kanan, an assistant professor of chemistry at Stanford. "If you could do that
without using a lot of non-renewable energy, you could dramatically lower the carbon
footprint of the plastics industry."
Kanan and his Stanford colleagues described their results in the March 9 online edition
of the journal Nature.
Changing the plastic formula
Many plastic products today are made from a polymer called polyethylene terephthalate
(PET), also known as polyester. Worldwide, about 50 million tons of PET are produced
each year for items such as fabrics, electronics, recyclable beverage containers and
personal-care products.
PET is made from two components, terephthalic acid and ethylene glycol, which are
derived from refined petroleum and natural gas. Manufacturing PET produces significant
amounts of CO2, a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming.
"The use of fossil-fuel feedstocks, combined with the energy required to manufacture
PET, generates more than four tons of CO2 for every ton of PET that's produced," Kanan
said.
For the Nature study, he and his co-workers focused on a promising alternative to PET
called polyethylene furandicarboxylate (PEF). PEF is made from ethylene glycol and a
compound called 2-5-Furandicarboxylic acid (FDCA).
"PEF is an attractive replacement for PET, because FDCA can be sourced from biomass
instead of petroleum," Kanan said. "PEF is also superior to PET at sealing out oxygen,
which is useful for bottling applications."
Despite the many desirable attributes of PEF, the plastics industry has yet to find a lowcost way to manufacture it at scale. The bottleneck has been figuring out a commercially
viable way to produce FDCA sustainably.
One approach is to convert fructose from corn syrup into FDCA. The Dutch firm,
Avantium, has been developing that technology in partnership with Coca Cola and other
companies. But growing crops for industry requires lots of land, energy, fertilizer and
water.
"Using fructose is problematic, because fructose production has a substantial carbon
footprint, and, ultimately, you'll be competing with food production," Kanan said. "It
would be much better to make FDCA from inedible biomass, like grasses or waste
material left over after harvest."
Turning plant waste into plastic
Instead of using sugar from corn to make FDCA, the Stanford team has been
experimenting with furfural, a compound made from agricultural waste that has been
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widely used for decades. About 400,000 tons are produced annually for use in resins,
solvents and other products.
But making FDCA from furfural and CO2 typically requires hazardous chemicals that are
expensive and energy-intensive to make. "That really defeats the purpose of what we're
trying to do," Kanan said.
The Stanford team solved the problem using a far more benign compound: carbonate.
Graduate student Aanindeeta Banerjee, lead author of the Nature study, combined
carbonate with CO2 and furoic acid, a derivative of furfural. She then heated the mixture
to about 290 degrees Fahrenheit (200 degrees Celsius) to form a molten salt.
The results were dramatic. After five hours, 89 percent of the molten-salt mixture had
been converted to FDCA. The next step, transforming FDCA into PEF plastic, is a
straightforward process that has been worked out by other researchers, Kanan said.
Recycled carbon
The Stanford team's approach has the potential to significantly reduce greenhouse
emissions, Kanan said, because the CO2 required to make PEF could be obtained from
fossil-fuel power plant emissions or other industrial sites.
Products made of PEF can also be recycled or converted back to atmospheric CO2 by
incineration. Eventually, that CO2 will be taken up by grass, weeds and other renewable
plants, which can then be used to make more PEF.
"We believe that our chemistry can unlock the promise of PEF that has yet to be realized,"
Kanan said. "This is just the first step. We need to do a lot of work to see if it's viable at
scale and to quantify the carbon footprint."
Kanan and colleagues have also begun to apply their new chemistry to the production of
renewable fuels and other compounds from hydrogen and CO2. "That's the most exciting
new application that we're working on now," he said.
The other Stanford coauthors of the Nature study are graduate student Graham Dick and
former postdoctoral scholar Tatsuhiko Yoshino, now at Hokkaido University in Japan.
Support for the research was provided by Stanford University through the Center for
Molecular Analysis and Design, the Camille & Henry Dreyfus Foundation and the Japan
Society for the Promotion of Science.
Generating electricity with tomato waste
A team of scientists is exploring an unusual source of electricity -- damaged tomatoes that
are unsuitable for sale at the grocery store. Their pilot project involves a biological-based
fuel cell that uses tomato waste left over from harvests in Florida.
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The researchers present their work today at the 251st National Meeting & Exposition of
the American Chemical Society (ACS).
"We have found that spoiled and damaged tomatoes left over from harvest can be a
particularly powerful source of energy when used in a biological or microbial
electrochemical cell," says Namita Shrestha, who is working on the project. "The process
also helps purify the tomato-contaminated solid waste and associated waste water."
Shrestha is a graduate student in the lab of Venkataramana Gadhamshetty, Ph.D., P.E., at
the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology. They are collaborating on this project
with Alex Fogg, an undergraduate chemistry major at Princeton University. Other project
collaborators include Daniel Franco, Joseph Wilder and Simeon Komisar, Ph.D., at Florida
Gulf Coast University.
Tomatoes are a key crop in Florida, notes Gadhamshetty. He stresses that the project is
important to the state because Florida generates 396,000 tons of tomato waste every
year, but lacks a good treatment process.
Gadhamshetty began working on the topic as a professor at Florida Gulf Coast University.
"The project began a few years ago when Alex visited my lab in Fort Myers, Florida, and
said he was interested in researching a local problem, especially local tomatoes grown in
our state and the large waste treatment issue," Gadhamshetty says. "We wanted to find a
way to treat this waste that, when dumped in landfills, can produce methane -- a powerful
greenhouse gas -- and when dumped in water bodies, can create major water treatment
problems."
So, the team developed a microbial electrochemical cell that can exploit tomato waste to
generate electric current. Shrestha explains, "Microbial electrochemical cells use bacteria
to break down and oxidize organic material in defective tomatoes."
The oxidation process, triggered by the bacteria interacting with tomato waste, releases
electrons that are captured in the fuel cell and become a source of electricity. The natural
lycopene pigment in tomatoes, the researchers have found, is an excellent mediator to
encourage the generation of electrical charges from the damaged fruits.
Some of their results proved to be counterintuitive. "Typical biotechnological
applications require, or at least perform better, when using pure chemicals, compared to
wastes," Gadhamshetty notes. "However, we found that electrical performance using
defective tomatoes was equal or better than using pure substrates. These wastes can be
a rich source of indigenous redox mediators and carbon, as well as electrons."
At the moment, the power output from their device is quite small: 10 milligrams of tomato
waste can result in 0.3 watts of electricity. But the researchers note that with an expected
scale up and more research, electrical output could be increased by several orders of
magnitude.
According to calculations by Shrestha, there is theoretically enough tomato waste
generated in Florida each year to meet Disney World's electricity demand for 90 days,
using an optimized biological fuel cell.
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"Our research question at this time is to investigate the fundamental electron transfer
mechanisms and the interaction between the solid tomato waste and microbes,"
Gadhamshetty notes. They plan to improve the cell by determining which of its parts -electrode, electricity-producing bacteria, biological film, wiring -- are resisting the flow
of electricity. Then they will tweak or replace that part.
Drastic decline of the flora biodiversity at the cultivated
fields of Catalonia
The flora of cereal crops has declined
dramatically in Catalonia (Spain) from the 50s
to today. It is estimated that agricultural
intensification has led to a reduction of over
50% of the wealth and 70% in the abundance of
so-called weeds (flora arvense) respectively.
This decline has been particularly dramatic in
the rarest species and those that are
characteristic of the harvest (segetals species).
Agricultural practices more intense in the last
five decades have also adversely affected the flora interesting for birds, pollinators and
other invertebrates. Comparing data between conventional and organic crops shows that
agricultural management that follows organic practices not only help the recovery of the
biodiversity of the flora of crops, but also increases the rare species and those that are
useful for wildlife.
However, it seems difficult to recover the highest levels of plant biodiversity in crops
Catalonia observed before the intensification of agriculture.
Sorghum: Not so ho-hum
Newly-released sorghum types offer biodiversity, crop improvement
It's an ancient grain that has been cultivated for thousands of years. Yet you may not even
have heard of it.
Sorghum was first grown more than 6,000
years ago in northeastern Africa. Many varieties
of this drought-resistant, hardy crop are
cultivated in other tropical and temperate
areas, including India, China, and Australia.
Farmers in the southern plains of the United
States have been growing this hardy cereal
since the1800s.
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Researchers recently released 40 varieties of early-flowering sorghum bred for use in
cooler, more temperate areas. These early-flowering varieties of sorghum are critical for
the spread of the crop to more new locations. When planted in areas with long days and
cold soils, typical sorghum crops face difficulties.
"Sorghum originates in the tropical areas of Africa--it does not like cool temperatures or
the long days in temperate climates," says Robert Klein. Klein is a researcher at the USDAARS and Texas A&M University.
As seasons change, the length of the day varies much more in temperate areas than in
tropical regions. Sorghum needs day lengths of less than 12 hours and 20 minutes to
flower. However, by the time days become short enough in late summer for sorghum
crops to flower, it also becomes too cold for them to survive in temperate climates.
Researchers have one major advantage. "There is a great deal of naturally-occurring
genetic diversity in the sorghum collection, and our research program exists to provide
that genetic diversity to seed companies and eventually to the consumer," says Klein.
The genetic diversity of sorghum -- and other plants -- is often preserved in germplasm
collections. Researchers define 'germplasm' as a living genetic resource such as seed or
tissue. "It is maintained for the purpose of animal or plant breeding. For plants that could
be seeds, roots, tubers, cuttings from trees, or even collections of entire plants," says
Klein.
This genetic diversity is key. Diseases or pests can spread from one region to another and
destroy entire crops. To prevent this, researchers can search germplasm collections and
breed crop varieties with natural resistance.
"Germplasm collections allow us to guard against problems that we can't even anticipate
while also preserving this genetic diversity for future societies. Once this biodiversity in
these collections is lost, it cannot be brought back," says Klein.
Sorghum has many benefits for farmers, consumers, and the environment. It is a droughttolerant crop. In many areas, it needs significantly less water than rice and corn. With
fresh water becoming more limited for agriculture, crops such as sorghum may become
more attractive to farmers. Sorghum has also been bred for a reduced need for herbicides
and pesticides.
In addition, sorghum has several nutritional benefits: It is a gluten-free grain. It has a low
glycemic index, which makes it well-suited for those who need to maintain blood sugar
balance. Certain varieties of sorghum have three to seven times the levels of antioxidants
found in blueberries or strawberries. It is low in cholesterol and high in fiber. Sorghum
has also been linked with good digestive and cardiovascular health.
Some varieties of sorghum are used as livestock feed. These have protein content and
quality comparable to more traditional protein sources, such as soybeans. They also
contain high levels of micronutrients, such as zinc, iron and phosphorus.
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NASA: February smashes global temperature record
A combination of strong El Nino event in the
Pacific Ocean and human-caused warming
drove temperatures in February 2016 to
levels never before seen since records began
in 1880, according to new NASA data.
The data shows that February had a global
average surface temperature of 1.35 degrees
Celsius above the 1951 to 1980 average.
The 1.35 degree Celsius temperature anomaly
in February beat the previous record high
departure from average for any month seen in January 2016.
Gavin Schmidt, the director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) tweeted
the temperature analysis.
“Normally I don’t comment on individual months, but last month was special,” Mr.
Schmidt tweeted.
According to NASA, the global average surface temperature during January was 1.14
degrees Celsius above average compared to the 1951 to 1980 average.
This means that temperatures in February 2016 had the largest departure from average
of any month in NASA’s records since 1880, Mashable reported.
The previous warmest February was in 1998, which was also a year with an extremely
strong El Nino, NASA said.
However, in an important indication of how far human-caused global warming has shifted
the baseline state of the planet’s climate, February 2016 came out 0.846 degrees Celsius
warmer than February 1998, despite the similar intensity of the El Nino events in both
years.
Impact of climate change on agriculture may be
underestimated
One of the most critical questions surrounding climate change is how it might affect the
food supply for a growing global population. A new study by researchers from Brown and
Tufts universities suggests that researchers have been overlooking how two key human
responses to climate -- how much land people choose to farm, and the number of crops
they plant -- will impact food production in the future.
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The study, published in Nature Climate Change,
focused on the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso, an
emerging global breadbasket that as of 2013
supplied 10 percent of the world's soybeans. The
researchers used variations in temperature and
precipitation across the state over an eight-year
period to estimate the sensitivity of the region's
agricultural production to climate change. Those
historical comparisons can help in making
predictions about the sensitivity of agriculture to
future climate change.
The study found that, if the patterns from 2002 to
2008 hold in the future, an increase in average
temperature in Mato Grosso of just 1 degree Celsius will lead to a nine to 13 percent
reduction in overall production of soy and corn. "This is worrisome given that the
temperature in the study region is predicted to rise by as much as 2 degrees by
midcentury under the range of plausible greenhouse gas emissions scenarios," said Avery
Cohn, aassistant professor of environment and resource policy at Tufts, who led the work
while he was a visiting researcher at Brown.
But the study's broader implications stem from the mechanisms behind the changes in
agricultural output. Most studies of this kind look only at the extent to which climate
shocks affect crop yield--the amount of product harvested from a given unit of
agricultural land. But by only looking at that single variable, researchers can miss critical
dynamics that can affect overall output, says Leah VanWey, professor of sociology at
Brown and senior deputy director of the Institute at Brown for the Study of Environment
and Society (IBES).
"If you look at yields alone, you're not looking at all of the information because there are
economic and social changes going on as well," said VanWey, one of the study's senior
authors. "You're not taking into account farmers' reactions to climate shocks."
For example, farmers may react to decreasing yields by putting less land area into
production because it's simply not profitable. Farmers may also vary the number of crops
they plant in a growing season. Double cropping--the planting of two successive crops in
the same field in the same growing season--is common in Mato Grosso. If the weather is
bad, farmers may alter their decision to plant a second crop.
For this new study, the researchers looked not only at crop yield, but also at year-to-year
variation in crop area and double cropping. To develop those additional datasets, Cohn
and VanWey worked with Jack Mustard, professor of earth, environmental and planetary
sciences at Brown, and graduate student Stephanie Spera. Mustard and Spera gathered
imagery of the Mato Grosso region from NASA's MODIS satellite, which monitors land
cover and land use all over the world.
In the satellite data, cropland is identified as areas that turn green during the growing
season, and then quickly become brown, indicating a harvest. Two green-ups in the same
growing season indicate the land is being double-cropped.
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"The changes in cropping that we quantified with remotely sensed data were stunning,"
Mustard said. "We can use those satellite data to better understand what's happening
from a climate, economic, and sociological standpoint."
The study showed that temperature increases of 1 degree Celsius were associated with
substantial decreases in both total crop area and double cropping. In fact, those decreases
accounted for 70 percent of the overall loss in production found in the study. Only the
remaining 30 percent was attributable to crop yield.
"Had we looked at yield alone, as most studies do, we would have missed the production
losses associated with these other variables," VanWey said.
Taken together, the results suggest that traditional studies "may be underestimating the
magnitude of the link between climate and agricultural production," Cohn said.
That's especially true in places like Brazil, where agricultural subsidies are scarce
compared with places like the U.S.
"This is an agricultural frontier in the tropics in a middle-income country," VanWey said.
"This is where the vast majority of agricultural development is going to happen in the
next 30 to 50 years. So understanding how people respond in this kind of environment is
going to be really important."
VanWey said a next step for this line of research might be to repeat it in the U.S. to see if
increased subsidies or insurance help to guard against these kinds of shocks. If so, it might
inform policy decisions in emerging agricultural regions like Mato Grosso.
"We may need to figure out a way to create incentives -- credit products or insurance -that can reduce farmers' responses to climate shocks," VanWey said.
Gujarat govt to set up varsity for organic farming
The Indian Express / 26 March 2016
Under its organic farming policy, the Gujarat government plans to increase the
organic farming area by 10 times in five years
The Gujarat government has decided to set up an agriculture university under the organic
farming policy of the state. The location of the proposed university has not been finalised
so far.
According to officials, Rs 10 crore has been sanctioned for 2016-17 for setting up the farm
university, the idea for which is said to be conceived by CM Anandiben Patel. This would
be the sixth farm university in the state after Anand, Navsari, Dantiwada, Junagadh and
Kamdhenu universities. Kamdhenu varsity is currently operating from Krishi Bhawan in
Gandhinagar and it focuses on research on cows and other cattle. Agriculture principal
secretary A M Solanki said, “At present, everything is at the initial stage.’’ The move has
been welcomed by NGO Jatan and other groups working to promote sustainable organic
farming in the state.
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Ludhiana farmer hosts ‘organic langar ‘ to mark Sikh
Environment Day
In a fitting tribute to the seventh Sikh
Guru Har Rai, who was also an ardent
environmentalist, a 57-year old farmer
from Ludhiana hosted an ‘organic
langar‘ on Monday at his farm to observe
‘Sikh Environment Day’.
In a langar (community kitchen), where
more than 100 people attended, the
menu included food and drinks prepared
completely from organically grown vegetables, cereals and even the desserts were
prepared using indigenous breed ‘Sahiwal’ cow’s milk.
The langar, primarily a Sikh tradition, was also attended by Deputy Shahi Imam Usman
Ludhianvi from Jama Masjid, Ludhiana. The attendees were gifted neem and flowers
saplings to mark the day.
Speaking to The Indian Express, Jasbir Singh Ghulal, from village Ghulal near Neelon, said
that it has been almost 12 years now that he shunned wheat-paddy farming and started
growing organic fruits, vegetables, rice and flowers.
A well-known rose flower farmer in these parts, Jasbir’s farm was visited by Prince
Charles during his trip to India.
“The primary source of my income is organic farming now. I know the farmers feel
insecure when they think of leaving wheat-paddy farming as organic vegetables market
is yet to gather pace. But it is the best feeling when pesticide free veggies and fruits bloom
in the farm. Today, I decided to host this organic langar to show that how sumptuous
dishes made from organic veggies can be,” he said.
The menu included dal (pulses), mix vegetables, black carrots juice and pickle, gulkand
(prepared from roses) and rotis- all prepared using organically grown crops without
pesticides. The dessert was ‘kheer’ prepared using Sahiwal cow milk
and shakkar (organic sugar).
Ravneet Singh, EcoSikh South Asia project manager said, “Organic food is necessary to
revive the true spirit of langar, which is sharing healthy food with the humanity. The
campaign aims to make all gurudwara kitchens preparing langar go organic. The target
is 50,000 gurdwaras where nearly 50,00,000 people take food daily. It will enhance the
demand for organic food, support organic farmers and improve human health.”
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The Sikh Environment Day campaign was started by US based organization EcoSikh in
2010, as a tribute to Guru Har Rai, the seventh Sikh Guru, who planted trees, setup a
wildlife sanctuary and a herbal medicinal facility at Kiratpur Sahib.
First organic farming university to be set up in Gujarat
Times of India / 27 March 2016
VADODARA: To help farmers in switching to
unconventional methods of farming, the state
government will set up country's first university
exclusively focusing on organic farming, Chief
Minister Anandiben Patel said.
Announcing this at a farmers rally held on the
outskirts of city on Saturday, Patel said, "Farmers
should now switch to organic farming and its ways
from conventional method of farming. Gujarat
government has decided to set up country's first university focusing organic farming."
State agriculture minister Babubhai Bokhiria said state government is committed to
promote organic farming and in order to achieve it, a fund of Rs 10 crore has been
earmarked towards the university in the annual 2016-17 budget, presented recently.
The location of the university is yet to be decided. The place may be chosen near to
agriculture Kamdhenu University in Gandhinagar district, he said.
He apprised that for promoting organic farming, state government has taken steps like
setting up of a cell to implement its new organic farming policy.
Beating malnutrition with organic farming
Times of India / 19 March 2016
RAIPUR: Students of 10 tribal residential schools in Maoist-hit Antagarh region of tribal
Bastar district have used their free time to develop kitchen gardens in school premises,
producing fruits and vegetables for their use.
Produce grown at these gardens knows as 'Poshan Vatika' or nutrition garden, supported
by agriculture experts, are seasonal and use organic method of farming. It is looked after
by students and school management.
Idea of establishing nutrition gardens in these schools was proposed by Kanker collector
Shammi Abdi, on the basis of a concept proposed by of Krishi Vigyaan Kendra (KVK) at
Kanker. For this, the administration provided monetary support and scientific guidance
to headmasters of these tribal residential schools.
Talking to TOI Kanker collector Shammi Abdi said "Poshan Vatika helped in addressing
problem of malnutrition among the students besides sensitizing them towards ecology
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and best practices in farming. As it's an agriculture dominated area, students would get
fresh intake of veggies and fruits besides experimenting with scientific training of
managing soil and plants after advice from experts of KVK".
Expressing happiness, H L Manjhi school headmaster shared his happiness on how these
kitchen gardens have added a creative activity for teachers and students. He said, "Soil is
prepared with organic manures and there is no use of pesticides on veggies and fruits,
which are plucked and cooked fresh for students by peons in schools. These vegetables
supplement the cereals, rice and grains from mid-day meals. Most veggies and even their
leaves are cooked, which add other nutrients required for students in their growing age."
Students are relishing the fresh taste of seasonal veggies garnished with fresh coriander
and green chillies, he said.
KVK programme co-ordinator Dr Birbal Sahu said, "Ideally this concept was designed to
encourage people to grow and consume organically fresh grown produce and for a family
of six members.
Nutrient garden in their backyard can of about 300 sq metres can be used to grow a wide
variety of vegetables." In schools five to six kilogram of veggies are plucked in an interval
of two days and a record of this is maintained by staff and students.
Craving nutrition: How 6 entrepreneurs took to organic
farming in Noida
Concern over what their children eat -food laden with pesticides, chemicals and
fertilizers -- has driven six families in
Noida to farming organic vegetables.
The families that consist of entrepreneurs
and
professionals
working
with
multinational companies have leased out
land to grow organic pulses, potato, onion,
cauliflower and peas among other items.
On weekends, these families turn farmers and do everything from composting to
ploughing and removing weeds from farmland. The children join them.
“My family was using organic food since a long time because farmers lately have started
using excessive pesticides and chemicals. Later, I learnt that even organic food lacks
nutritious value because producers follow wrong farming practices so I decided to form
a group and do farming on my own,” said Nandini Diesh, 42, a corporate lawyer and a
trained farmer. Diesh attended a five-day farming course at an agricultural institute in
Noida in 2013. She also did a three-day course at Kitchen Garden Association of India.
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“I was doing small-scale farming on land available at home to get fresh vegetables. Last
year I decided to take it up to grow healthy food,” said Diesh.
The families were exploring different organic food options available in the market since
long. When they decided to stop using organic food they did not know who to trust for
healthy food. They looked for organic food items online, from local farmers and farmers
but were not satisfied with the quality available.
“Nandini, who learnt farming through self study and training, came up with the idea of
farming. Initially, I thought it will not happen because we did not have land. We did not
have enough funds to buy agricultural land in and around Noida. Then we formed the
group and took land on lease,” said another group member Dinesh Sharma, 47, a software
professional. Sharma devotes at least one to two days every week for farming along with
his family.
Craving for nutritious food bonded these six families, who started farming for the first
time in October 2015. Diesh and Sharma were joined by Mahesh Tangri, a civil engineer
with Jaypee Group, Vijay Bhasin, regional sourcing manager for south Asia for Newell
Rubbermaid. They were all residents of Noida’s Jal Vayu Vihar. They were later joined by
Amit Rana, 29, an entrepreneur who stays in sector 12 and Rudra Mahapatra, 31, an IIT
Delhi alumnus. Mahapatra is the owner of a start-up — Hiring Partners — and a resident
of Ghaziabad’s Crossing Republik.
The group took 4,000 sq m land on lease on a rent of `12,000 per year. Local green activist
Vikrant Tongad offered cheap land as he wanted the initiative to become a model for
others. The group found a farmland in Greater Noida’s Khedi Bhanauta village, just 25
kilometres from Noida’s Jal Vayu Vihar.
Getting agricultural land on lease was difficult because of a scarcity of land in Noida due
to the housing boom. But land for farming is available in Greater Noida and Bulandshahr
areas.
“Because of power crisis, procuring water on time was a huge task. It was difficult availing
water for irrigation. But the hard work paid off as we got nutritious vegetables to cook
daily at home,” said Mahapatra, who is determined to expand the project.
The six families have realised that most of the organic food producers use hybrid seeds
to increase yield because they want to make more profit.
“We have used only desi seeds that have high immunity unlike hybrid seeds. Desi seeds
contain higher level of nutrition and have 99-100% germination unlike hybrid seeds,
which are not so rich in nutrition,” said Diesh, who is also joint secretary of Noida’s
floriculture society.
The group decided to grow only seasonal crops unlike other farmers and organic food
producers, who grow unseasonal pulses and vegetables that are not healthy.
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“To earn money every three months, farmers are growing unseasonal crops with the help
of pesticides and chemicals. They are unaware of the fact that they are producing
unhealthy food,” said 51-year-old Mahesh Tangri.
The group uses cow dung, jaggery and cow urine to make a paste to keep insects away
from crop.
The six professionals want others to visit the farm and learn farming for free.
“After our success many of our friends now want to join and they say let’s take a bigger
piece of land. We had wanted this to be a role model so that others can do it. We are ready
to train others free of cost so that interested people can get healthy food,” said Diesh, who
is now busy making arrangements to grow seasonal crops such as maize, lobia, peanuts,
sunflower, water melon, rice and fruits like lemon, kinu, pomegranate, litchi, etc.
Although five in the group want to stick to farming using traditional tools of organic
farming, but one member disagrees.
Amit Rana believes in the use of modern technology for farming to save time. “I agree
with the method that we adopted at this farm for organic farming. But to plough land on
our own using bulls is not practical. We should use tractors or modern tilling machines
and use drip irrigation to save time,” said Amit Rana.
ICAR head calls for more investment in public research
Secretary to the Department of Agricultural Research and Education (DARE), T.
Mohapatra, on Saturday said the ongoing row over Bt cotton seed pricing is a pointer to
the significance of making more investments in public research on technologies.
“[It] emphasises that the public system should invest more to have its own technologies
in place so that we are not over-dependent on one particular agency,” he replied to a
query on the veiled threat of agri biotech major Monsanto to withdraw from India over
the pricing.
Expressing hope that the issue could be resolved through “negotiations and discussions”,
Dr. Mohapatra, who is the Director General of Indian Council of Agricultural Research
(ICAR) as well, said apart from protecting the interest of farmers, the enhanced
investments would ensure against monopolisation of the market.
In the city on a two-day visit from Friday to all the ICAR institutes, he interacted with
presspersons at the Indian Institute of Millets Research.
For Monsanto, he explained, withdrawing should be very tough as India is a “very big
market for them”. Moreover, the company has been in the country for 15 years now.
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Without discounting the trouble that may crop up if Monsanto -- which licences the Bt
technology through Mahyco Monsanto Biotech (India) -- leaves, the official said the
government was preparing alternative technologies for Bt cotton.
The Central Institute for Cotton Research (CICR) is on the job and made “some progress.
There is a need to do more,” he said, adding that greater efforts and more investments
are called for in the sector.
Bt cotton row: Monsanto threatens to re-evaluate India
biz
The company was responding to the Centre’s order to control cotton seed prices
US biotechnology major Monsanto today
warned of re-evaluating its presence in India
and holding back new technology if the
government cuts trait fee of Bt cotton seeds
drastically through “arbitrary and potentially
destructive” interventions.
The Centre had last December issued an order
to control cotton seed prices including trait or
royalty value effective from 2016-17 crop year.
A committee under the Agriculture Ministry has been set up to recommend the seed price
along with royalty fee soon.
Mayhco Monsanto Biotech Ltd (MMBL), a joint venture firm of Monsanto, has challenged
the order in Delhi High Court.
MMBL has sub-licensed Bt cotton seed technology since 2002 to various domestic seed
companies.
“If the committee recommends imposing a sharp, mandatory cut in the trait fees paid on
Bt-cotton seeds, MMBL will have no choice but to re-evaluate every aspect of our position
in India,” Monsanto India Region CEO Shilpa Divekar told PTI.
MMBL currently charges trait fees of Rs. 122.96 and Rs. 183.46 per packet of Bt Bollgard
I and Bt Bollgard II seeds, respectively.
Ms. Divekar threatened it would be difficult to introduce new technologies in India at a
time when there is no sanctity of contracts between the two private parties and no
guarantee of recovering investments made in research activities.
“It will be difficult for MMBL to justify bringing new technologies into India in an
environment where such arbitrary and potentially destructive government interventions
make it impossible to recoup research and development investments focused on
delivering extensive farmer benefits and where sanctity of contracts is absent,” she said.
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Noting that certain reports in the public domain are false, Ms. Divekar said, “We sincerely
hope that the government will be fair in its approach.”
Over the past 19 years, MMBL’s single-minded focus has been to serve over seven million
cotton farmers in India. This has been reflected in benefits delivered by the technology,
trait value prevalent in India, broad licensing of technology and extensive ongoing
investments in stewardship for sustenance of technology, she added.
According to sources, the government committee has already held one round of
discussions on this issue. It is likely to submit its recommendation to the ministry soon.
The government’s cotton seed order comes against the backdrop of a bilateral dispute
where few licensees refused to honour their commitments to pay MMBL, over Rs. 450
crores after collecting these amounts from the cotton farmers in Kharif 2015.
Meanwhile, competition watchdog Competition Commission of India has ordered a
detailed probe against MMBL for alleged abuse of dominance by the Indian arm of the USbased genetically modified seed giant Monsanto.
Fertiliser subsidy bill set to reduce by Rs 10,000 crore
next fiscal: Crisil
Overall reduction in the subsidy bill will be about Rs.10,000 crore.
The next financial year will see the
government’s subsidy bill reduce by around
Rs 10,000 crore thanks to the cut in the
nutrient-based subsidy rates and the low
price of gas, according to Crisil.
“The reduction in nutrient-based subsidy
(NBS) rates announced last week could trim
the government’s subsidy bill for phosphatic
fertilisers by Rs 5,000 crore next fiscal,” a
report by Crisil said. “The cut, which follows declining international prices of diammonium phosphate and ammonia, would influence the contracted price for
phosphoric acid, the key raw material, for fiscal 2017.”
“Overall subsidy bill reduction would be around Rs 10,000 crore next fiscal-Rs 5,000
crore through the cut in NBS rates, and a similar amount in urea subsidy because of lower
gas costs,” Sudip Sural, Senior Director, CRISIL Ratings said.
The current price of gas in India is $3.82 per million British thermal unit, which is set to
be changed in April. The consensus view is that the April review will see gas prices falling
further.
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The reduction in the subsidy bill could help the government reduce its fertiliser subsidy
arrears of around Rs 35,000 crore that have been carried forward since 2012, Mr Sural
added.
“But achieving a balanced nutrient ratio, which was one of the objectives of NBS, remains
a far cry, given the continuing price disparity between urea and phosphatic fertilisers,”
he said.
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on March 23 announced that the subsidy
rates for nitrogen and phosphatic nutrients would be cut by Rs 5 per kg and Rs 5.4 per
kg, respectively, amounting to a 25-30 per cent reduction. The subsidy rate for potassic
nutrients was kept largely unchanged.
The fertiliser subsidy has been estimated at Rs 70,000 crore for 2016-17, lower than the
Rs 72,437.58 crore estimated for the ongoing financial year.
Crisil finds that the poor monsoon over the last two years has created a vicious cycle in
the fertiliser sector.
“Two consecutive years of deficient monsoon has burdened the fertiliser industry with
excess inventory, estimated around 5 million tonne, which is equivalent to 90-100 days
of consumption. That means manufacturers will have limited ability to increase prices to
compensate for the reduction in subsidy, which, in turn, increases their dependence on
monsoons,” the report said.
Denied space in cold stores, Doaba potato growers left
in the lurch
The unprecedented rush by potato
traders and the cold storage owners to
book space in cold storage units in
advance has created a mess for the potato
growers, who are facing problems in
storage of their crop at their own level.
The situation has become difficult for the
farmers as they are being compelled to
return from the gates of cold storage units after being denied space for storage. Farmers
are now moving to other far flung districts in a bid to store their crop at higher rates.
Notably, in this season, the potato growers had started fetching a good price for the crop
due to the failure of potato crop in other states.
However, farmers say under pressure from the heavy demand from the rest of the
country, the buyers and traders, who buy potato crop in the fields and trade in other
states for maximum profit, are pressurising farmers to sell the crop at lower rates.
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Jugraj Singh, a farmer from Madar village of Jalandhar, said this year, they sold the crop
at a profitable rate of Rs 10-15 per kg. However, at the peak of the season, buyers started
pressurising growers to sell the crop at lower rates of Rs 7-8 per kg, which the farmers
refused.
“As the traders were aware that with the buyers pressuring farmers to accept lower rates,
farmers would store the crop in cold stores, buyers also started advance bookings in cold
stores so that farmers could not book sufficient space for their crop. Eyeing good profit
from storage of the crop, the cold store owners have also started booking space to store
the crop, which they never ever do,” said Prit Pal Singh Dhillon, secretary of Jalandhar
Potato Growers Association.
The situation has worsened to such an extent for the farmers that few cold storage units
are charging the farmers double the usual storage rate.
Usually, the farmers pay Rs 70 per 50kg per season to store the potato crop but now
farmers have booked space for Rs 150 per 50kg per season.
Jaswinder Singh Sangha, general secretary of another potato growers association, said
the mad rush for booking space in cold storage units had led to worsening of the situation.
The problem of shortage of space is worst in Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur and Kapurthala
districts.
In a damage control mode after the matter reached the state government, the district
administrations have started re-opening of many cold stores that were lying defunct from
the last many years because of various reasons such as non-payment of power bill or
operating loss.
Davinder Singh Dhariwal, secretary of Doaba Kisan Sangharsh Committee, told HT that
after their delegation took up the matter with Jalandhar deputy commissioner, they were
assured about making space available in the existing stores and directions were issued to
horticulture and agriculture officials.
“However, results are yet to be seen on the ground as both the departments have failed
to push the matter till now. It has come to our knowledge that the government has relaxed
norms for those stores that were shut from the last many years. I doubt if these defunct
stores would provide better storage facility for the farmers,” said the farmer leader.
Indian Science Congress meet from today
Arrangements are in place for the conduct of national consultation on ‘Science and
Technology for development of indigenous India’ organised by the Tirupati chapter of
Indian Science Congress Association (ISCA) on March 25 and 26. The Vemu Institute of
Technology at P. Kothakota will host the event.
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The meet lays emphasis on the need for the country’s scientific honchos to look inward
and devise ways to develop indigenous technology, when self-reliance is increasingly
becoming the hallmark of a successful nation.
Focus
According to Sri Venkateswara University former Vice-Chancellor Rallapalli Ramamurthi,
who was general-president of the ISCA, the focus will be extensively on achieving selfsufficiency and self-sustenance in the fields of agriculture, energy, water resources,
education, transport, environment and industry.
Waterless in Marathwada: Farm crisis is extra hard
on women
About 65 kilometres from the cracked
earth that was once their source of
income, Mandakini Mujmule, in her
forties, and her daughter Anita, 21,
have spent 16 days in Beed city’s
government hospital. Mandakini has
undergone a complicated uterine
surgery, nearly four years after she
first experienced shooting pain in her
lower abdomen.
The crop failures at home in Kari village of Beed’s drought-hit Dharur taluka are behind
them, they don’t talk about it anymore. Until Mandakini is reminded that the trouble with
her uterus coincided with the drought of 2012.
“It was unnerving. I knew the pain was abnormal. But how do you budget for health
expenses when everything you put into the field has been a waste?” When she was
examined by a “city” doctor at a medical camp last month, she was immediately referred
to Beed Civil Hospital for further tests, then surgery. “The doctors didn’t ask why I had
ignored it for four years. I suppose they heard the same explanation from dozens of
women.”
In Marathwada’s worst-hit districts of Beed, Osmanabad and Latur, households now have
an uncompromising priority list of expenses as an economy hit by years of near-total crop
failure goes into a tailspin. And, as rural doctors are finding to their dismay, women’s
health, and certainly reproductive health, lies at the bottom of the pyramid, along with
women’s nutrition, equal pay for labour and higher education for girls.
“Whether it’s the physical stress of collecting water from the tanker in dozens of pots
daily, or the emotional stress of putting out a decent meal for the family when there’s no
money at home, whether it’s maintaining menstrual hygiene in times of acute water
scarcity or dealing with an increasingly violent or alcoholic husband, it’s always women
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who have to bear the brunt of a disaster,” says Godavari Kshirsagar, 44, of Gandora village
in Tuljapur, Osmanabad.
An activist with the Swayam Shikshan Prayog, an organisation that focuses on economic
empowerment of women in the region, Godavari is among several hundred women who
have organised themselves into self-help groups. This network, which helps women set
up agro-based businesses, has a reassuring report: Wherever women have begun to focus
on financial independence, they’ve become the backbone of drought-hit families,
managing to provide better than subsistence-level incomes in the face of farm losses.
Archana Koli, 38, is among the 100-odd women in Salgara Devti village of Tuljapur who
joined these groups to set up home-businesses with help from the Swayam Shikshan
Prayog and the Tuljapur Krishi Vigyan Kendra. “I want a set of kadaknath hens next,” says
Archana. The kadaknath is an all-black chicken native to central India, now rapidly
earning a “superbird” reputation for its protein and its eggs that fetch Archana Rs 30
apiece.
Archana has over 150 chicken, and is only starting her kadaknath family. Salgara Devti,
with a population of 4,283, has 2,400 hectares of cultivated land, almost all of it now
barren. Between 200 and 250 men have left the village to look for work in cities. “The
only real income source in the village remains whatever the woman can earn,” says
Archana. Some of her friends are making chivda of soya, others are rearing goats, but the
‘kadaknath kukadpalan’ or poultry is the big rage.
Archana and her friends are either landless labourers or small and marginal farmers. All
have suffered crop destruction multiple times since 2012. Most have more than one loan
to repay. “The men feel no hope any more. So more and more women are running families,
everybody acknowledges it now,” says Archana, a mother of two. Needless to say, it is still
the women’s responsibility to ensure pots are lined up in queue for the tanker.
Marathwada’s women may not figure in official data of farmer suicides — they’re not land
owners. But for every addition to the growing list of suicide victims, there’s a farm widow
whose income sources and social relationships are realigned immediately. “Everything
changed in one moment,” says Anita Mulay about the day her husband Uttam hanged
himself at home, on the morning of Dussehra 2014. Anita was 23 then, with two sons,
Vishal and Vaibhav. From creditors to sexual predators, Anita has multiple fears. “We
were cultivating gairan land, so we got no compensation,” she says. Cultivating gairan or
grazing land has been a tradition and a movement in large parts of Marathwada where
the landless, mostly Dalits, have occupied and cultivated government-owned land for
decades and have been, with little success, demanding legal rights over this land.
Just outside Osmanabad’s Bhum town, Taramati Jadhav, almost 60, returned to the field
a couple of weeks ago after the mandatory period of mourning following her husband’s
death. Taramati expects to make Rs 150 today. Like most women in the region, Taramati
refers to her late husband Mahadev as “maalak”. “One cannot grieve forever, right?” she
reasons.
A Matang by caste, her family never owned land, and times have never been worse for
landless labourers. “Wages are falling, and naturally me and my daughter-in-law don’t
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make much money now,” she grumbles about the disparity in pay for women labourers.
A resident of Rameshwar village nearly five km from the farm she’s found work in,
Taramati tries to walk the distance, to avoid paying for an auto ride. “There isn’t much
work anywhere, so better to save every penny,” she says.
Taramati is working for lower wages and for longer years than she’d have expected, a
somewhat less visible impact of the years-long drought in Marathwada. Beed-based
women’s rights activist Manisha Tokle says these silent effects of the drought need to be
studied for a nuanced policy response. “Families are broken as some people go away
looking for work. Some weddings are called off, some girls are married off too young. Old
women are forced to continue to work and get paid less and less,” she says. Amid a third
drought in four years, simply subsidising food is not adequate government action, Tokle
says.
Those who move to the cities now fare just as poorly. In Beed Civil Hospital, Sonali
Ghodke, 25, is attending to her mother-in-law, who has arrived from their village, also for
uterus surgery. Sonali and her husband run computer classes in Beed city, but student
strength has dipped. “Nobody signs up for computer classes in the middle of such a severe
drought, so we can barely make Rs 8,000-Rs 10,000 a month,” Sonali says.
The Ghodkes and the Mujmules of Kari, Dharur taluka, live over 50 km apart, but their
tales are strikingly similar. Mandakini Mujmule, who put off visiting a hospital for four
years, is unhappy her daughter Anita’s wedding had to be postponed owing to the sudden
rush of expenses. Anita has two brothers, but she’s the one camping in the grubby hospital
with her mother, 16 days on the trot.
“Travelling from the village to college was too expensive, so I gave up,” Anita says about
pulling out after her first year of BSc (Agriculture). “I told aai and baba to marry me off.”
It would be one person less to feed, she reckoned. That’s what Godavari, Manisha and
others working on women’s issues in the backward region would like to change.
As women shoulder the burden of replacing lost incomes, it’s time to ensure that land
rights and higher education are made available to women in a systematic way, Godavari
says. Anita Mujmule agrees that a degree would improve her job prospects. She says she’ll
have a little chat with her fiance.
In times of unpredictable weather, ‘precise farming’
comes to aid
‘Precise farming’ reportedly constitutes following the recommendations of experts
and the Met department.
With the weather turning out to be the biggest enemy of the farming community in the
past seasons, ‘precise farming’ is the answer, say experts and progressive farmers. The
turbulent weather in the region over the past two days has damaged wheat crop in some
places, but farmers who are practising ‘precise farming’ say they have not been affected.
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‘Precise farming’ reportedly constitutes
following the recommendations of
experts and the Met department.
Amarjit Singh, a farmer of Jalandhar, has
sown wheat on 20 acre of his farm, and
despite heavy rain and strong winds, the
wheat is still standing long in the fields.
“We follow the recommended farm
practices and never go beyond that,” said
Amarjit Singh. He adds that according to the advice of agri experts, the farmers never sow
the wheat before November and use adequate water, instead of flooding the fields.
“Wheat in all the fields adjacent to ours is falling flat because most of the farmers never
adhere to the advice of the experts and hardly care for the Met department predictions,”
said farmer Avtar Singh of Bhangu Kudrati Kheti Farm in Charkey, Jalandhar.
“Whenever we run our tubewell to irrigate the fields,” he added, “we choose a man to stop
it when the fields get wet, but farmers mostly use excessive water, fertilisers and
pesticides which make their crops weak in turbulent weather conditions.”
Another farmer of Barapind village near Phillaur is also seeing his crop stand straight
against the wind and the rain. “I have been growing wheat on the beds and the trenches
surrounding the beds take away the excessive water from the crop,” he said.
“We were ready to water our crop, but when we saw the Met predictions we decided to
wait and now the rain has irrigated the crop well,” he said.
S S Gosal, an eminent scientist and PAU Board of Management, emphasised that they were
educating farmers to adopt conservation agriculture and precision farming to get
maximum from least sources.
“We have been focusing on telling farmers that they should go to agri experts of their
respective districts and even Krishi Vigyan Kendras to get information about precise farm
techniques,” he said.
Gosal added that farm literature was very helpful in profitable farming and the university
had produced several short books and songs from which farmers would get to know
about right types of farm practices.
“It is time for the farmers to adopt accurate farm practices, instead of depending on old
traditional methods. They must get their farm land levelled to save and run adequate
water in the fields,” said Gurdial Singh. He added that they were educating farmers on the
same in the camps on growing Kharif crop.
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Week-Long 'Festival Of Innovations' Kicks Off At
Rashtrapati Bhavan
New Delhi: In a bid to boost the grassrootslevel innovations across the country,
President
Pranab
Mukherjee
today
inaugurated the second edition of the weeklong "Festival Innovation" at Rashtrapati
Bhavan.
The festival, to be celebrated from March 12
to 19, has been organised by the President's
Office in collaboration with the National
Innovation Foundation (NIF).
The festival was kicked off with the inauguration of an "Exhibition of Innovations" at the
world-famous Mughal Gardens that will remain open to the public till March 19.
"Innovation is an idea whose time has come. The budget for this festival has gone up 600
per cent as compared to last year," Ashutosh Sharma, secretary, Department of Science &
Technology, told media.
"Our idea is to reach out to the students from class 6 to 12 for innovative ideas across the
country. From there, one lakh ideas will be selected and each of them will be given Rs.
5,000 to convert the idea into an innovation," he added.
Later on, 10,000 innovations will be selected and showcased at state-level. Out of the
10,000 innovations, 1,000 will be showcased at the national level. "The final 60
innovations will be showcased at the Rashtrapati Bhavan," Mr Sharma noted.
The president also released a book titled "Festival of Innovation- 2015" authored by Dr
Harsh Vardhan, Minister of Science and Technology, at the event.
The exhibition showcases several innovations including a tractor-driven onion
transplanter, multi-crop thresher, foot operated page-turning device for differently-abled
and posture correcting chair, among others. The most noticeable products among the 65
eye-catching grassroots innovations are anti-molestation device for women worn on
wrist and alert switch in bus/auto rickshaw for the safety of women.
Besides these, the festival will have three exhibitions, two workshops, four group
discussions, two award presentation ceremonies and round-table on different topics
during the week. Some highlights of the festival are a keynote address by Nobel laureate
Kailash Satyarthi on March 13 and presentation of Visitor's Award on March 14.
The NIF, set up in 2000 by the Department of Science and Technology, has taken major
initiatives to serve the knowledge-rich, economically poor people of the country.
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Herbicides remain a bright spot for agrochemical firms
Live Mint / 24 March 2016
Manpower shortage and high agricultural wages are driving demand for
herbicides
Amid a weak business environment, herbicides
remain a bright spot for agrochemical firms. The
herbicides
business,
which
has
been
outperforming the agrochemical market growth
for the past several years, is forecast to grow at
strong pace in the next few years too.
Manpower shortage and high agricultural wages
are driving demand for herbicides. Historically,
the availability of an abundance of low-cost
workers meant there wasn’t much of a need for herbicides, as the work of uprooting the
unwanted plants could be done manually. But as wages rose, manual weeding has become
an expensive affair, which in turn is driving demand for herbicides.
According to Avendus Capital Pvt. Ltd, in the five years to 2014, the herbicides market
expanded at an average annual pace of 15%, faster than the 10-13% growth registered
by insecticides and fungicides. Insecticides are used to kill insects, while fungicides
destroy fungi. The total agrochemical market is estimated to grow by 12% per annum.
Avendus Capital forecasts the insecticides and fungicides market growth to moderate to
10-12% in 2014-2019. But herbicides are expected to maintain the growth tempo. From
$900 million in 2014 the herbicides market is estimated to double to $1.8 billion in 2019.
“This trend is expected to continue going forward, with strengthening demand arising for
herbicides from increased mechanization and reduced labour intensity of agricultural
practices, higher labour cost arising from urbanization and reduction in rural
population,” Avendus Capital said in a note.
Two-day seminar on food security in India: ‘Gap between
demand
for
food
and
food
producing
resources increasing’
Delivering the keynote address, Professor Garry Fehr highlighted that the second
Green Revolution would not be possible with the attributes of the first Green
Revolution.
A two-day seminar on ‘Agriculture and Food Security in India: Challenges and
Opportunities’ commenced at Panjab University on Thursday. The seminar is being
organised by the Centre of Advanced Study (CAS-II, UGC), Department of Geography,
Panjab University.
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The students and research scholars of various national and international universities like
University of the Fraser Valley, Canada; University of Newcastle, UK; Punjab Agricultural
University; Maharana Pratap University of Agriculture and Technology, Udaipur; JNU,
New Delhi; University of Delhi are participating in the conference.
Delivering the keynote address, Professor Garry Fehr highlighted that the second Green
Revolution would not be possible with the attributes of the first Green Revolution. He
said that agricultural technology was the need of the hour. “There is a gap between
demand for food and food producing resources and that gap is increasing,” he said.
Christopher Gibbins, consul general, Canadian consulate, Chandigarh, highlighted the
common area of research and development in India and Canada in agriculture.
In his presidential address, professor B S Dhillon, Vice-Chancellor of Punjab Agriculture
University, Ludhiana, referred to the misconceptions related to productivity in Punjab.
Comparing it with the yield in Madhya Pradesh, he proved that the productivity in Punjab
was still higher. “A total of 85 per cent of landholdings in India is smaller than 2 hectare.
In Punjab, it is 35 per cent. The small size of landholdings have a reverse impact on
adopting new innovative agricultural technologies,” he added. He discussed the scenario
of Indian per capita availability of food grains and stressed on strategies for accelerating
growth in the agriculture sector.
Earlier, the theme of the seminar was introduced by professor Dhian Kaur, Department
of Geography, PU. She said agriculture was a crucial sector and faced problems like
economic viability, environmental sustainability and global competitiveness.
The seminar was inaugurated by professor O P Katare, PU director, Research Promotion
Cell. The delegates were welcomed by professor Ravinder Kaur, chairperson, Department
of Geography. Professor Krishna Mohan, coordinator, CAS-II, Department of Geography,
PU, proposed the vote of thanks.
The first plenary session was chaired by professor Swarnjit Mehta. Professor Harjit Singh
from JNU spoke on issues of sustainability in agriculture in India. He deliberated on use
and misuse of land resource, soil toxicity, and new chemicals entering into the food chain
and the consequent health hazards. He highlighted that any course of action in improving
the sustainability of agriculture needed to consider the rising aspiration of the increasing
population.
“Development cannot be rejected neither can the technology be rejected, but application
and adoption of technology needs to take place in an environmental friendly manner,”
said Singh.
The second plenary session started with professor Gopal Krishan in chair. Professor B S
Ghuman from Department of Public Administration, PU, and Suzanne Speak, University
of Newcastle Upon Tyne, New Castle, UK, were the speakers.
Speak deliberated on the importance of urban agriculture in contemporary cities and
traced how people were getting all their food at the place of inhabitation and how food
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started moving. She highlighted that urban policy makers must stop thinking of
agriculture as a rural activity.
Speaking on the status of food security and role of public policies, Ghuman highlighted
that India had done exceedingly well in agriculture production and yield per hectare. He
said that in the post-economic reforms period, the yield per hectare had declined for both
wheat and rice.
“Agriculture sector is hence a victim of economic reform. Public and private investment
in agriculture has declined. Food production is not an indicator of food security. The per
capita availability of food has declined in India. The decline in pulse production has
impacted the protein intake in a country of vegetarians. Bihar is the worst sufferer of food
insecurity, along with Chhattisgarh,” Ghuman said.
‘Grow in India’ call by Vice President to transform
agriculture sector
Deccan Chronicle / 06 March 2016
Ansari stressed that there was a need for social and economic correction to
address the challenges in development of rural sector.
Hyderabad: ‘Grow in India’ must be the
slogan to transform the socio-economic
fabric of the agriculture sector, Vice
President Hamid Ansari said at the
National Seminar on ‘Public Investment
and Subsidies on Agricultural Inputs and
the Upliftment of Agrarian Economy’
organised by the All India Kisan Sabha
here on Saturday.
Mr Ansari stressed that there was a need for social and economic correction to address
the challenges in development of rural sector. “Mere infusion of funds is not enough.
There is a need to address the underlying social gaps and divisions,” he said.
Mr Ansari said that small farmers were weak and they could not generate adequate
income and sustained livelihood. Their participation in the agricultural market remains
low due to a range of constraints, he said.
Such as low volumes, high transaction costs and lack of markets and information access.
Given this it is important to enhance public expenditure in agriculture in the form of
investments rather than untargeted subsidies, Mr Ansari said.
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Use technology, water conservation: PM Modi to farmers
in ‘Man ki Baat’
ABP Live / 27 March 2016
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi
on Sunday called for use of technology and
water
conservation
to
increase
agricultural productivity as he listed out
various pro-farmer initiatives of his
government.
“The government is planning to make five
lakh new ponds through MGNREGA. These
will be our assets to conserve rain water
which will help the farmers to irrigate their
land in view of deficit monsoon,” Modi said in the 18th edition of his monthly radio
address ‘Man Ki Baat’.
Asking people to find news ways to conserve water, the prime minister said the ponds
should be kept clean so that “more and more water can be conserved”.
He also requested farmers to download and use Kisan Suvidha App, which will provide
all the information regarding agriculture and new technologies to improve the farm
productivity.
“You will be amazed to know that we are presenting a Kisan Facility App for our farmers
as part of Digital India campaign. If you download it in your mobile, information related
to weather forecast, latest aggro-medicines and other developments in the fields will be
on your finger tips. You will have better knowledge of crop prices and position of farmmarkets,” Modi said, insisting the mobile application will connect the farmers directly
with the agricultural scientists.
“It is a myth that such a facility can only be used by urban people and youth,” he said,
asking farmers to file a complaint to him if they find any difficulty in the mobile
application.
He also urged farmers to use lesser fertilisers as “their overdose is ruining the soil of its
fertility and bringing hazards to the countrymen”.
Referring to the World Health Day (April 7), Modi called for eradicating diabetes from the
country and asked people to do Yoga and physical exercise to fight the disease.
“Please defeat diabetes this time. India was home to around 6.5 Crore diabetics in 2014.
The disease brings many other problems with it and it was responsible for more than
three percent deaths in our country,” Modi said.
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Mentioning the government’s steps to deal with rising cases of tuberculosis, he said
people should not delay going for check-ups if they find out any symptom of the disease.
“There are more than 13,000 microscopy centers and four lakh DOTS providers in the
country who grant medicines free of cost,” Modi said.
Admitting that India is lagging behind in tourism sector compared to the world, Modi
asked countryman to give thrust to tourism. He insisted on the need to attract more
tourists to India by making the country’s tourists destinations more attractive.
He said tourism has great potential for generating employment for millions of the youth
of the country. Calling for collective efforts in this direction, Modi said the governments,
NGOs and society can play a pivotal role to further develop tourism sector.
The prime minister also lauded the efforts of Western Coalfields Limited Nagpur for
developing eco-friendly mine tourism circuit.
Technology and Agriculture: Messed in India!
For the first five years after its
introduction in India in 2002, ‘Bollgard’,
the genetically-modified Bt cotton
developed by Monsanto, effectively
controlled bollworm insect pests. Yields
increased by 67 per cent and use of
insecticides — which couldn’t contain
the extensive damage from American
bollworm prior to that — decreased by
33 per cent.
True, yields may have also gone up due to other factors: a 36 per cent increase in fertiliser
use; doubling of area under hybrids; increase in irrigated cotton area in Gujarat; and the
effects of seed treatment with imidacloprid and introduction of at least six new
insecticides to control sap-sucking insects.
The scenario, however, changed after the introduction in 2006 of ‘Bollgard-II’ Bt cotton,
containing a second gene, Cry2Ab, derived from a soil bacterium called Bacillus
thuringiensis, in addition to the original Cry1Ac gene of ‘Bollgard’. Average seed-cotton
yields per hectare in India have stagnated at 1,500-1,700 kg since 2006, despite the share
of Bt hybrids in overall acreage rising from 38 per cent to 96 per cent and fertiliser usage
rising by 70 per cent. More disturbingly, insecticide usage has gone up by 92 per cent,
because of increased sap-sucking insect pest attacks.
The blame for this can be laid largely on the whopping 734 Bollgard-II hybrids —
compared to just about 20 in the first five years — being approved to saturate almost the
country’s entire cotton area. The bulk of these hybrids were highly susceptible to leaf
hoppers and whiteflies. Increased insecticide use only accelerated the development of
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‘insecticide-resistance’ in these pests. Even more worrisome was the pink bollworm,
which was almost forgotten in India after 1980, but made a reappearance to rapidly
develop resistance to Bollgard II.
The main reason why India has been unable to harness the full potential of Bt cotton
technology is that it got caught in the hybrid trap. Strange but true, only India cultivates
Bt cotton hybrids, whereas other countries grow only ‘straight varieties’. The general
perception is that hybrids give higher yields. With 95 per cent of India’s cotton area under
Bt hybrids, its yields should have been the highest. The truth is that India’s seed-cotton
yields are way below the average 2,700 kg/hectare for the rest of the world, despite these
countries predominantly cultivating straight varieties. In fact, Pakistan and China
rejected the idea of ‘Bt-cotton hybrids’ and Monsanto doesn’t have a presence there.
India’s average yield is low mainly because of the unsuitability of hybrids for rain-fed
regions which constitute 60 per cent of India’s cotton area. The crop duration, too, is
longer, at 7-8 months, compared to 5-6 months in other countries. The plant density in
hybrids of about 11,000 to 16,000 plants per hectare is a tenth of the global average based
on straight varieties. High-density planting is simply unviable with expensive and bushy
hybrids producing more foliage. Because of low plant population in hybrid cotton fields,
each plant is required to produce more number of bolls, which extends into long duration.
Long duration isn’t good for rainfed conditions, where the crop suffers moisture and
nutrient stress, especially during the critical flowering and boll formation stages from the
4th to 7th months, resulting in lower yields. Hybrids generally perform well under
irrigated conditions with high chemical inputs, but even there long-duration hybrids
provide opportunities for insects like pink bollworms to proliferate in multiple cycles.
These feed mainly on developing cotton seeds in green bolls.
Bt cotton is a powerful and useful technology to control bollworms: American bollworm,
pink bollworm and spotted bollworm. But since the technology in India was available
only with private companies, they ensured it was incorporated only into hybrids and not
in straight varieties enabling farmers to reuse the farm-saved seeds. They were left with
no choice, but cultivate hybrids whether or not these suited their soils. In the irrigated
belt of Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan, the acreage under hybrid cotton was negligible
prior to the introduction of Bt hybrids. But by 2008, the entire cotton area in the region
was covered by commercial Bt-cotton hybrids, replacing all straight varieties. These
included excellent publicly-bred high-yielding varieties tolerant to insects and diseases.
Unfortunately, with the proliferation of hybrids since 2006, Punjab’s cotton crop suffered
heavy infestation of whitefly last year. Nor have yields gone up much. Yields in Pakistan
under similar conditions have been 20 to 30 per cent higher than in the adjoining NorthWest Indian states.
Bt cotton technology was messed up in India by the private seed industry, which
underestimated the power of bollworms and undermined the need for implementing
proactive insect resistance management strategies. No wonder, a small worm called ‘pink
bollworm’ has brought Bollgard-II technology down to its knees. It needs to be asked why
the pink bollworm developed resistance to Bt cotton only in India within just 5-6 years,
and not elsewhere in the world. The industry is instead blaming the Indian farmer for not
planting non-Bt cotton seeds as refugia. But this could only have marginally delayed
resistance development. China doesn’t have any recommendation of ‘refugia’ planting
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along with the regular Bt cotton seeds. Yet, the pink bollworm hasn’t developed
resistance despite 18 years of Bt-cotton cultivation there.
There are three factors unique to Bt cotton in India, all of them related to hybrids, that
have accelerated the development of pink bollworm resistance to Bollgard-II.
* 1 Bt toxins are absent in 25 per cent of seeds in the bolls of hybrid Bollgard plants and
in over 6 per cent of seeds in the bolls of Bollgard-II plants. The young bollworms can,
then, survive initially on non-Bt seeds and subsequently, as they get older, feed on the
rest of the seeds containing Bt toxins. This accelerates resistance development. When Bt
technology is available in ‘straight varieties’, all the developing seeds in bolls contain the
toxins. Therefore, resistance development is delayed.
* 2 Hybrids take longer time to produce more bolls/plant, thus providing continuous food
source that help pink bollworm proliferate in multiple cycles and adapt to Bt toxins.
* 3 More than a thousand Bt cotton hybrids were approved in India without proper
agronomic recommendations. These, in a matrix of combinations, provided synchronous
and overlapping flowering and fruiting windows over a long stretch of time to support
pink bollworm populations, thereby accelerating resistance development.
Next in waiting is the impending resistance threat from the most dreaded American
bollworm. It is clear that for the next five years, there are no new genetically-modified
solutions in the offing. One immediate option under the circumstances is for seed firms
to explore the sale of Bt straight varieties under high density planting. All of them have
such varieties that they use as parents for hybrid development. Also, they must promote
only a few Bt cotton hybrids of 5-6 months duration. These can escape pink bollworm
attacks occurring during November-February in central and south India.
Over the past five years, CICR has been pursuing non-Bt ‘desi’ cotton cultivation as a
sustainable alternative option, especially in rainfed tracts. Our results have shown that
high yields with low production costs can be obtained with short-duration, earlymaturing and compact varieties even in the rainfed regions of Vidarbha and Telangana.
The crop could also escape bollworm attacks for most part of the season. Besides, CICR
has converted around 20 of the elite public sector cotton varieties into Bt. These would
be tested this year in Maharashtra and Telangana under multi-location trials to identify
the most suitable Bt varieties for rain-fed tracts. Their seeds could be available from 2017
or 2018 onwards at low cost. Since the Bt toxins would be in a homozygous condition in
the straight varieties — i.e. in all the seeds in the bolls — they would effectively combat
the American bollworm and escape pink bollworm because of short duration. They will
also have better yields because of high-density planting.
Despite the big challenges ahead for cotton, the battle is not lost. We can consolidate our
ammunition to tide over the next 4-5 years, if science receives precedence over
commercial interests at least now.
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‘New technologies in agriculture should be affordable’
The Hindu / 28 march 2016
Siddeshwar Swami of Jnanayogashram,
Vijayapura, has said that new technologies
in agriculture must not only reach farmers
but also should be affordable.
The swami was at the S. Nijalingappa Sugar
Institute on Wednesday to inaugurate
tissue-cultured
sugarcane
seedlings
developed under natural environment
conditions.
He said that innovations in science and technology should easily reach growers and sugar
mills. Modern technologies should be farmer-friendly and help boost farm productivity.
Specific technologies for sugarcane sector should not only boost farm productivity but
also improve financial conditions of growers, a press release issued by SNSI director R.B.
Khandagave said on Saturday.
Dr. Khandagave said that experiments at the laboratory were aimed at creating healthy
seeds of improved varieties of sugarcane; faster perpetuation of newly released
sugarcane varieties in a short time; and improving sugarcane yield and sugar recovery.
He said that adoption of this technology would help maintain genetic and physiological
purity of sugarcane varieties. The efforts would help sugarcane growers and sugar
industry grow on sustainable basis.
The process of production of sugarcane tissue-cultured seedlings by using the variety Co
86032 was under process.
Dr. Khandagave said that varieties of sugarcane were being developed at the
Zadshahapur centre of the institute on Belagavi-Khanapur Road in collaboration with the
premier Sugarcane Breeding Institute, Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu.
The important varieties viz., Co 2012-238, Co 2012-88, Co 14010, Co 2012-91, Co SNK
07337 and Co 2012-147 were giving high yield and sugar recovery compared to ruling
varieties.
A new paradigm for agriculture?
The Hindustan Times / 12 March 2016
The Union Budget 2016-17, seeking to “transform India”, has been hailed for its emphasis
on agricultural growth and sustainability. Symbolically, the finance minister put
“agriculture and farmers’ welfare” first in his nine-point agenda. The words “agriculture”
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and “farmer” found 20 and 32 mentions, respectively, in the budget speech, the highest
in the last decade.
On the substantive side, the government takes pride in nearly doubling the allocations for
the agriculture sector, from Rs.22,958 crore in 2015-16 (revised estimate) to Rs.44,485
crore in 2016-17 (budget estimate). The increase stems in part from the inclusion of the
interest subsidy, traditionally part of the finance ministry’s budget, under agriculture.
Excluding this, the budget involves a 27% increase in agricultural spending. The
increased funding is expected to improve irrigation and crop insurance, create a national
e-market for agri-produce, promote production of pulses and subsidize interest on shortterm agri-credits.
The finance minister emphasized the need for optimal utilization of water resources, new
irrigation infrastructure and balanced use of fertilizers, among other priorities for the
agriculture sector. With a provision of Rs.12,517 crore, the government seeks to
strengthen Pradhan Mantri Krishi Sinchai Yojana to bring 2.89 million hectares under
irrigation and create a dedicated long-term irrigation fund under the National Bank for
Agriculture and Rural Development (Nabard). In addition, the minister pledged to
expedite 89 irrigation projects languishing under the Accelerated Irrigation Benefits
Programme, at a cost of Rs.17,000 crore next year, with an additional Rs.86,500 crore
over the next five years to irrigate an additional 8.06 million hectares.
While the budget has commendable emphasis on the creation of agricultural
infrastructure, including irrigation, value-chain, marketing and connectivity, it is more
subtle on resource efficiency and management. On this front, the government has
prepared a major programme for sustainable groundwater management, with an
estimated expenditure of Rs.6,000 crore, proposed to be financed by multilateral funding.
With a provision of Rs.412 crore, the government seeks to promote organic farming in
rain-fed areas. In this regard, the Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana aims to bring half a
million acres under organic farming over three years. To promote organic produce in
domestic and export markets, the government has launched the Organic Value Chain
Development scheme in North-eastern India. Creatively, the government has also
pledged to develop half a million farm ponds and dug wells in rain-fed areas for water
conservation and one million compost pits by “making productive use of the allocations
under MGNREGA”.
Does the budget make the right move toward transforming agriculture for sustainable
growth? Critics see the emphasis on agriculture as a means of placating rural voters,
especially in light of upcoming assembly elections in major agricultural states like West
Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab. The finance minister reiterated the vision pronounced
by the prime minister in a political rally of farmers in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh, a day ahead
of the budget, to double the income of farmers by 2022. Though both of them emphasized
the need for water management, the budget seem to have a biased focus on irrigation
development and missed the big picture around resource utilization, efficiency and
sustainability.
The Economic Survey 2015-16, published ahead of the budget session, presents the most
commendable analysis of agrarian crisis in India. It claims Indian agriculture to be “a
victim of its own success—especially the green revolution”, by becoming cereal-centric,
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regionally biased and input-intensive (land, water and fertilizers). The Survey makes the
case for “a new paradigm” for agricultural development, aimed to get “more from less”—
more productivity from less resources. It specifically points out the need to “economize
on the use of water” in agriculture. It also highlights the leakages in the fertilizer subsidy,
which is to the tune of 65% of the subsidy. The government spent Rs.73,000 crore (about
0.5% of gross domestic product) on fertilizer subsidies in 2015-16. The Survey
recommends direct benefit transfers to farmers as a solution to subsidy woes.
Similar issues and concerns were raised in an Occasional Paper from the NITI Aayog,
titled Raising Agricultural Productivity and Making Farming Remunerative for Farmers.
The paper claimed that “area under irrigation can be doubled in the country without extra
water if we attain water use efficiency level of countries like China, USA and Brazil”.
Among other important recommendations, the paper made strong suggestions for
improving water- and fertilizer-use efficiency.
There are no new findings. Much of these have already been identified in the 12th FiveYear Plan document. The government clearly knows the problems and the possible
solutions to them. What it lacks is an appropriate strategy that values scarcity of
resources, interlinkages in their consumption pattern and the big picture around
environmental degradation.
The budget, as a manifestation of the government’s intent, seems to be restrained on the
sustainability dimension, even after adequate emphasis in various policy publications. A
“growth-first” approach may work in the short-term, but it will not be able to sustain
agricultural activities, productivity and income in long run. Given that, India needs to
prioritize agricultural growth and sustainability simultaneously. It needs to reorient and
align policies that affect inputs—crop choices, fertilizer use, irrigation practices and
energy—as well as outputs—price signals and markets. The latter has already been
prioritized by the government and needs to be calibrated to promote better resource use.
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