Banana bank’s rare varieties go commercial

Shree Padre, Kasaragod

DURING the pandemic, Babu Parambath, a social activist, mulled growing something on his sister’s tiny 0.20 acres of land lying idle ...

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Jackfruit in dumpling is a winner in Kerala

Shree Padre, Kasaragod

A steamed dumpling made of ripe jackfruit, jaggery and rice flour wrapped in an aromatic leaf with the fragrance of ...

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Passion fruit finds value and rises in the south

Shree Padre, Kasaragod

A little known fruit, synonymous with the northeast, is finding takers in the southern states of Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil ...

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Mustard brightens up the fields of Kashmir farmers

Jehangir Rashid, Srinagar

MILES of yellow mustard fields dot the picturesque landscape of Jammu and Kashmir, indicating the increasing success of oilseed cultivation ...

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Wild oranges return with Friends of Mangoes

Shree Padre, Kasaragod

TWO months ago, Natesh Konanakatte, a young graftsman from Sagara taluk, posted online that he had identified a wild orange ...

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At Soppu Mela, nutritious greens to go wild over

Shree Padre, Kasaragod

THE small venue where a two-day Soppu Mela or Green Leaves Fair was being held in Dharwad, in Karnataka, was ...

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Dig a pond in memory of a loved one, nourish the earth

Rakesh Agrawal, Dehradun

WHEN Sukhdev Chamoli's 87-year-old father died, he was overwhelmed with grief. He too is an elderly 67. His mother had ...

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GM food crops are not needed here

Bharat Dogra

Till very recently the Indian government, supported by a range of farmer, health and environmental activists, had taken a clear ...

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Mango in a big hurry lasts just three days

Shree Padre, Ankola (Karnataka)

WHAT does a farmer do with a haul of juicy mangoes that have a shelf life of just one day? ...

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India’s mango village has 102 varieties

Shree Padre, Kannapuram

EVEN in Kerala’s scorching summer, Chunda Kuruvakkavu, a hamlet in Kannapuram of Kannur district, is surprisingly cool. Huge mango trees ...

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Famous mango is a loser in the marketplace

Shree Padre, Kuttiattoor

WHAT ails the Kuttiattoor mango? In the past seven years the stars seemed to shine on this luscious mango. It ...

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Lanka could learn from Sikkim how to go organic

Civil Society News, New Delhi

WHEN the Sri Lankan economy collapsed with a sigh recently, prominently sticking out of the debris was a failed attempt ...

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Bulls to become dinosaurs?

Bharat Dogra

IN a country where bullocks have served humanity in numerous ways for thousands of years and, in fact, continue to ...

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Saffron blooms in the South

Shree Padre, Kasaragod

FOR 39-year-old Girish Muchal Ramaswamy, a rose farmer in Vasupura village, November 11, 2021 was a day of great significance. ...

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Bad apples: Scab takes a big toll in Himachal

Raj Machhan, Chandigarh

Apple orchards in Himachal Pradesh have fallen victim to a  disease called scab after a gap of 38 years, taking ...

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How Jana chose traditional farming

Bibhubanta Barad, Parijat Ghosh and Dibyendu Chaudhuri, New Delhi

On a sunny morning in the summer of 2017, a women’s Self-Help Group (SHG) at Jana, a village in the ...

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How Punjab planted paddy minus labour

Raj Machhan, Chandigarh

Agricultural workers from Bihar and UP left Punjab in droves during the lockdown. Looming ahead was the paddy season. What ...

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Can Himachal apples survive the big fall?

Raj Machhan, Shimla

Five years ago young apple growers, many of whom had given up jobs to return to family orchards, came together and ...

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Hema Ananth loves farming, her veggies make people happy

Shree Padre, Hassan

Every morning and evening, a tiny shop opens in Kuvempu Nagar, a residential locality a short walk from Hassan Railway ...

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Goan engineer's dream comes true with Gir cows

Derek Almeida, Panaji

When Chaitanya Malik graduated from the Goa College of Engineering with a specialisation in computers, he mapped out a surprising ...

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Jack hotspot: Thailand Pink booms in Kerala village

Antu Pallippadan’s jackfruit farm is a sight to behold. It has 400 jackfruit plants standing in close proximity on just ...

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Assam gourd hits a sweet spot in Karnataka

Shree Padre, Chettalli

A small spiny vegetable from Assam is set to debut in Malnad district of Karnataka. Locally known as madahagala or ...

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Climbing classes: Young men in Kerala get up areca trees

Shree Padre, Puttur

For 15 years Prashanth, a 37-year-old villager living near Thirthahally in Karnataka, slaved at a granite quarry and a petrol ...

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Teff is here and injera may be on its way to India

Shree Padre, Gadag

Four years ago, Dr N.S. Sudhakar, a professor, returned home to Mysore from Eritrea with a packet of teff seeds ...

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A wealth of rare seeds for farmers in Thrissur

Shree Padre, Thrissur

On September 28 an interested group of farmers was escorted to an unusual field at the National Bureau of Plant ...

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Organic boosts tribal incomes from cotton

Usha Rai, Barwani (MP)

In 2015, after growing Bt cotton for 15 years, around 7,000 Bhil, Bhilala, Korku and Gond tribal farmers of the ...

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Anthony Pacheco’s idyllic organic farm in Goa

Derek Almeida, Chorao (Goa)

Anthony Pacheco is one of those rare entrepreneurs who is at home in both an electronics workshop and a farm. ...

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Kerala farmers learn to grow winter vegetables

Shree Padre , Thrissur

Mohammad Kutty of Thoppil Thodi in Pazhayannur panchayat of Thrissur district grows vegetables commercially for sale. This year, he feels ...

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‘A single Indian market is what farmers need’

Civil Society News, New Delhi

The upsurge of violent protests by farmers in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh comes  in the wake of seething discontent in ...

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Craze for cracked fruit is bringing in big bucks

Shree Padre, Kodungalloor

In summer, hundreds of makeshift stalls appear alongside National Highway-47 from Chavakkad to Kochi, selling the juice of snap melon ...

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Kerala gets the tomato it always wanted

Shree Padre, Thrissur

Groups of farmers regularly visit Mala in Thrissur district after learning of this prime vegetable growing belt from the media. ...

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Tracing the many relatives in the jackfruit family

Shree Padre, Kottayam

Jackfruit was born and cultivated in India but how many varieties do we have? Nobody really knows. But ask Thomas ...

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Don’t import apples, say hill farmers

Bharat Dogra, Shimla | Photographer: Ajit Kirshna, New Delhi

In several Himalayan villages, owners of apple orchards are angry about the Union government’s decision to facilitate the import of ...

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An orchard in the desert

Civil Society News, Barmer

At 68, Chhogalal Soni has the gruff ways of someone accustomed to taking on challenges. A tall man, with gnarled ...

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Mangosteen bonanza in Kerala village

Shree Padre, Chalakudy

The road to the spectacular Athirapally Falls passes through Pariyaram, a little known village near Chalakudy town in Thrissur district ...

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Satara puts its water systems back

Shree Padre, Satara

In 1708, Shahu Maharaj, grandson of Chhatrapati Shivaji, the great Maratha leader, conquered Ajinkyatara, a fort built by Raja Bhoj in ...

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The diggers of suranga are vanishing in India

Shree Padre, Kasargod

Chaliya Kunhambu, 64, is standing on a road, 30 km away from Kasargod, the district’s headquarters. If he could connect ...

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Kodagu coffee stays in the family

Shree Padre, Bengaluru

In 2007, Greenhills Estate, a coffee plantation in Kodagu, fell on hard times. Its owner, A.T. Chengapa, had taken ill ...

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Women pluck betel leaves after radio campaign

Biswajit Padhi, Bhubaneswar

Basanti Bhoi cultivates two gardens of betel leaves all by herself at Dhanahara village  in Odisha. A year or two ...

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Land rights elude Dalits

Bharat Dogra

Despite all the rhetoric about land reforms, Dalits have been able to acquire only very small plots of cultivable land. ...

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Organic veggies from field to van to customer

Shree Padre, Kasargod

Saikumar Billur was working long hours in a cement factory after doing a diploma course in engineering and he wasn’t ...

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Directly from farm to customers

Ravleen Kaur, Chandigarh

Deepika Kundaji turned her back on a career in academics in her late twenties to become a farmer. Training to ...

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SEWA lighting up fields

Tanushree Gangopadhyay, Ahmedabad

For nearly two years, the mosque in a village in Kashmir would be enveloped in darkness when the sun dipped. ...

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Avocado is a blessing for coffee growers

Shree Padre, Kasargod

For many years Veera Arasu thought the 800 avocado trees growing on his coffee plantation merely served a functional purpose. ...

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On the trail of giant tubers in South Kannada

Shree Padre, Joida (Karnataka)

Joida taluk in Uttara Kannada is so remote and badly connected that the local Kunbi tribals trudge 20 km and ...

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Tribal farming is cash-free, sustainable

A field in Dharaav village

Bharat Dogra & Baba Mayaram, Bhopal  In Dharaav village in Hoshangabad district of Madhya Pradesh (MP), tribal farmers practise a ...

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