Growing fences

Burgeoning population and agricultural encroachment in the last half century have erected artificial walls within the Gond tribes. These ethnic …

Andhra's groundwater crisis & a trail of suicides

Groundwater has failed Andhra Pradesh’s farmers. Between 1997 and 2006, about 4,500 farmers committed suicide, unable to repay loans they …

High yields in Andhra's pesticide-free village

The age of discovery

Research in rice genomics could be the key to eradicating hunger through environmentally sustainable methods, says Latha Rangan

Food crisis grips Bangladesh after flood and cyclone Sidr

Rice that binds

The paddy compulsion

War continues between Karnataka, Tamil Nadu farmers over Cauvery water for cultivation

Cereal killer

By promotong rice over coarse grains, the government is promoting food scarcity and defeciency of micronutrients among India's most malnourished …

The secret garden

Want to know about a lost variety of rice or a cure to asthma? Answers lie in the notebooks of schoolchildren and women of the Sundarbans and …

Back in f(l)avour

Entry of high yielding hybrid rice has spelt doom for traditional diversity in the Konkan belt. Thanks to a science academy, the ancient legacy …

Going off course

As the Cauvery river dispute between Karnataka and Tamil Nadu gets reduced to a politico-legal wrangle, focal issues remain unaddressed

Is the joyride over ?

There was fear in the 1960s. Would India continue to wait for food imports to feed itself? The scientific community came up with an answer that …

India must focus on rainfed farming

There was a time when it was said that the Indian budget was a gamble on the monsoons. That is not the case any more, with industrial production …

Ladakh on the move

Ladakh is the one region in India where sustainable development is the only way ahead. Dry toilets, water efficient crops, cooperative farming, a …

Field day

India's soils are in a bad shape. T V Jayan investigates

Outstanding grain

The aromatic enigma makes basmati a clear winner among grains. The lack of knowledge of what traditional basmati is and an inability to take …

Global food crisis: causes and implications for India

Is there a global crisis unravelling? World food reserves are at their lowest in 25 years and the prices of most food crops are at a record high. …

With IT villages

Elsewhere the bubble may have burst, but in rural India infotech is alive and kicking

Debating science risks

Chinese scientists appear to be more open to discussing the risks and ethics of new technologies than their Indian counterparts

A sticky label

US biotech industry gears up to play dirty in Europe