High cost of fodder led milk price hike

Birmashri Rathore knows exactly how much water to add to milk so that it can still be accepted as milk.

Disconnect

Tractors in India are out of reach for the majority of farmers. The cheapest tractor costs Rs 1.8 lakh, almost as much as a new car. But while a car is a luxury, a tractor is not: it's becoming an imperative as the demand for food grains increases.

Got Fodder?

Manju and Mukesh Gupta have had to reduce their milk intake because the two rupee per litre milk price hike has become too much of an expense. Meanwhile, Tughlakhabad Farm Owner Karam Vee explains increases in milk prices is the result of reduced fodder production.

Why is fodder so expensive?

Tejpal Mehta, former sarpanch of village Dighariya, is well known all over Thana Gaji tehsil of Rajasthan’s Alwar district because he is among the rare few who possesses 100 milch animals, both indigenous and crossbred.

Harvesting troubles

This year the wheat harvesting season witnessed the growing trend towards the use of combine harvesters. This machine combines the tasks of harvesting, threshing, and cleaning of grain. Till a decade ago, most of the wheat crop was harvested manually, mostly by landless or near-landless farm workers from the same or neighbouring villages. They were paid mostly as a share of the harvested producequite often one

Time to redress

Small and marginal farmers constitute about 80 per cent of India's farming community. It would be logical to think that any government policies aimed at the country's farmers would, first and foremost, benefit them. But reality does not bear this out; rather it shows that these farmers remain the most neglected.

Foreign influence

Tractors came to India in the 1960s, imported from the US and European countries, mainly the erstwhile Soviet Union. But these countries had large land holdings; most tractors made there were of medium to high horsepower. In a country where landholdings were not so large, such tractors came to be replicated, unthinkingly. India also imported tractor kits that could be assembled.

65 million draught animals

This, after four decades of government efforts to promote farm mechanisation through tractors. Can tractors -- small tractors, whenever they will be built -- completely replace draught animals?

Natural paradox

On November 4, the un General Assembly voted overwhelmingly in favour of ending the us-imposed embargo against Cuba. The Mexican representative was the first to speak in favor of the anti-blockade resolution. So did Morocco, on behalf of the Group of 77 plus China; and Malaysia, which presides over the Non-Aligned Movement.

Generating controversy

in a move that smacks of collusive manoeuvring by policymakers and the industry, diesel engine-driven agricultural pump sets have been exempted from the air emission standards notified by the Union ministry of environment and forests (mef) in May 2002.