In search of East India Company
Ours is a corporate age. And amid the fertile arguments on how to tame and transform today's corporation, there is a sense that current era of …
Book review: Commercial cultivation of medicinal plants
It is an obvious business risk for a farmer to give up growing conventional crops that have assured returns and start growing medicinal plants. …
A fish moves west
Ten years ago Bangladesh’s rivers were deeper and hilsa plentiful. Silting, dams and pollution pushed the fisher into deep ocean leading to …
The goat gamble
It has been a slow and steady shift over decades. Forced by declining returns from farming in ecologically fragile areas, small farmers have been …
What's in your honey?
Ayurveda prescribes it for a range of ailments. People eat it for rejuvenation and boosting immunity. An Indian homemaker’s kitchen shelf …
Paan loses flavour
Iconic paan no more appeals to farmers, traders and common people. They say the contagious spread of chewing tobacco, especially gutkha, is fast …
Veggies delight
The rising demand for vegetables has opened up a money-making opportunity for small farmers. Already reeling from recurring droughts and …
Cockpit
In early December 2007, the country prided itself on providing the world with a road map to check the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus H5NI.…
Organic Universe
Organic is all the rage. Organic food, cosmetics, clothes and even organic medicines. But mostly it is food. There are speciality stores that …
More developing nations now dependent on commodity exports: UN report
It can negatively affect human development indicators like life expectancy, education and per capita income
Ban on exports helps protect Indian bullfrog
The decline of the Indian bullfrog was reported recently in a New Scientist article. But, it may be premature to conclude that the species is doomed.
Foreign food trade impacts importing countries’ environment too
Soybean farmers in a country that imports soybean have to switch to other crops on a land where there is leftover nitrogen after crop harvest
Up the wrong tree
A report on the US ban on shrimp exports from India, which appeared in this magazine recently, has elicited a sharp response from Earth Island …
Shrimp mentality
The us ban on exports of shrimp from India reflects a myopic approach and is likely to rebound when India takes the case to the World Trade …
Let them eat carp: Fish farms are helping to fight hunger
Contrary to perception, a vast majority of farmed fish is consumed in the same developing countries where it is produced, and is widely …
The vanilla's meeting
High prices and illegal shipments of inferior quality have badly affected Madagascar's status as premier vanilla producer.
Thais go on logging, despite ban
A UN ban on export of hardwood from Cambodia notwithstanding, Thai loggers continue to exploit loopholes and carry wood across the border.
Loggers, environmentalists at loggerheads
By lifting a ban raw wood export and levying a huge tax on it instead, officials in Jakarta have come under fire from both loggers and …
India’s water is being exported as agri-exports; is there a solution
It is critical for us to adopt the circular water management model of treating and rejuvenating wastewater at source, along with efficient water …
India bans wheat export
The Centre has banned export of all types of wheat from the country with immediate effect
The ‘qissa’ of Basmati
As the European Union gets set to pronounce whether to give a GI tag to India’s Basmati rice, we explore the history of a grain that …
Basmati rice: the new authenticity rules aiming to remove sub-standard varieties from the market
If we don’t maintain today’s standards, it may harm the industry — and crucially the farmers who work so hard to produce this …
US firm uses new software to woo Japanese market
Microsoft Corp of USA has launched a Japanese version of the Windows 3.1 software package, which is expected to grab for it control of Japan's …
Painful cuts
Timber companiesfrom Asia stand to lose millions of dollars if a proposed law is passed by two cities in the US
Food first: After wheat, Modi government curbs sugar export
Only 10 millon tonnes can be exported in the remainder of current season ending September