.jpg)
MOST POPULAR
- Gujarat pollution board gets a makeover in efficiency 33
- Rains over past three days extreme weather event: scientists
- Medicine mite
- Seeking Food Sovereignty
- Man-made reasons for Uttarakhand disaster
- Kawal sanctuary in Andhra Pradesh declared tiger reserve
- Turmoil in academia
- Letters - June 15, 2012
- BPL millionaires 7
- South Asia: world's ship scrapping yard
- Environment ministry wants to restore night traffic through Bandipur tiger reserve 52
- A green facade 45
- Diesel: when bad policy makes for toxic hell 38
- Gujarat pollution board gets a makeover in efficiency 33
- What’s good insulation? 30
- How vulnerable are India's nuclear power plants to disaster 28
- Grand distraction called river interlinking 28
- Eat at your own risk 27
- Green energy takes toll on green cover 26
- Temporary solution, permanent jam 25
FOLLOW US ON
Chemical Fertilisers
Toxic aid
Issue Date: Mar 31, 1993
ENVIRONMENTALISTS are concerned that plans by Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to provide Cambodia with a US $3.78 million aid package, includes supply of 30 tonnes of insecticides worth US $800,000.
Gepgraphical Spread
GEOGRAPHICAL SPREADPampering Apples
PAMPERING APPLESThe stakes in tomato cultivation
CRATES for one hectare of tomatoes, which is grown as an off-season crop in Himachal Pradesh, require wood from 10 ha of chir pine forest, says R V Singh, former director general of the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education. Tomatoes -- as well as peas and beans -- are heavy users of stakes made from lopped branches. Staking is necessary in hilly rain-fed areas to prevent rotting of fruit. Stakes last about three years, though many break during re-use. Two or three stakes are used for each plant, depending on the thickness of the stake.Need for topping up underground water
BANANAS are thirsty plants, and farmers in the Jalgaon area of Maharashtra -- who produce 10,00,000 tonnes of the state's annual banana output of 17,00,000 tonnes -- have literally begun mining for water. Groundwater levels in the area have fallen from 22 m in 1970 to 60 m. Baliram Borawale, a partner in Mohan Dhana and Co, a banana-trading firm, says, "Farmers draw water using electric motors, which accounts for the drop. The problem becomes acute in summer."Water use stretched to the limits
FARMERS in the orange-growing regions of Warud and Morshi in Amravati district of Maharashtra refer to the area as "the California of Vidarbha." According to the directorate of horticulture, of the 36,800 ha under orange cultivation in the state in 1989-90, 29,000 were in Amravati and Nagpur districts.Don't bite that apple!
Issue Date: Mar 15, 1993
WHEN GOD forbade Adam and Eve from eating the apples from the Tree of Knowledgehe probably had environmental interests in mind. But Eve couldn't resist the temptationand neither could Adam. Too bad. The price for their folly is still being paid.
Pesticides, food additives and scientific lies
Issue Date: Mar 15, 1993
MORE than 70 new chemicals are registered every hour in the US alone. The public - battered and bemused by daily press reports about the dangers of smoking, pesticides, pollution and food additives - looks to scientists to pronounce on the safety of this rising chemical tide. But the scientists do not know, either.
Making science, technology serve the people
Issue Date: Oct 15, 1992
AT 52, Ramachandra S Hegde is a broken man. After more than 25 years as a primary schoolteacher in Karnataka, he recently became a headmaster of a primary school in Kumta, about 150 km from Mangalore. But, at the fag end of his career, this talented teacher and rural technologist (see Grassroots, p 23), has been transferred to a far-flung rural school because, he contends, he cannot bribe the right people.
Interviewee:
R S Hegde
Mothballing nitrogen
Issue Date: Jun 15, 1992
THE Indian Agriculture Research Institute (IARI) has devised now techniques of using fertilisers - through the split application and the deep placement methods and using granules rather than powder - which will prevent the loss of nitrogen into the atmosphere and the water table, and result in higher crop yields as well as counter environmental and health hazards.
