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Where mushroom means money

Mushroom was thought to be poisonous at Sonapur in Assam''s Kamrup district till a vigorous campaign was mounted to promote its commercial cultivation




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Kashmir fruit industry under a blanket of untimely snow

Just when Valley growers were celebrating the bumper fruit crop and the beginning of cross LoC trade, early snowfall in Kashmir this winter ruined their party.




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Orissa misses Oct rains, stares at drought now

Orissa is staring at a mini drought after lack of winter rain has led to wilting of standing paddy crops in over 2.86 lakh hectares of land.




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Hi-tech cotton testing machines non-starters in Punjab mandis

"These machines have become all the more significant with the government declaring support price on the basis of parameters like staple length and micronaire value"




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Shrinking fields don''t stop bumper paddy crop in Valley

Even as Kashmir loses thousands of hectares of its agricultural land to urbanisation...




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Punjab farmers reap windfall from kinnow

Come December and a rich hue of orange lights up the Punjab villages from Hoshiarpur in the north to the Abohar-Ferozepur belt in the south.




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DAP shortage hits JandK in sowing season

With the Rabi season around the corner, farmers in Jammu and Kashmir are facing an acute shortage of chemical fertilisers.




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Uttarakhand gears up to cash in on walnut crop

With the Uttarakhand Government seizing the initiative in the matter, the state might well be on its way to becoming the walnut basket of India.




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Cotton MSP formula goes Awry?

The Minimum Support Price of cotton that the Punjab Government had announced on the basis of various quality parameters of the crop...




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A problem of plenty

When a demand and supply story goes horribly wrong, a bumper crop like that of potatoes in Uttar Pradesh...




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Floriculture blooms in J-K as govt encourages women

Commercial cultivation of flowers is gradually picking up in Jammu and Kashmir.




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U''khand chalks out plans to tap medicinal plants

Though Uttarakhand has often been described as a hub of herbs, it has so far failed to tap the natural resources to its potential.




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Slowdown grounds export of vegetables

Early this week, Fieldfresh, an initiative of Bharti-Rothschild, dispatched a consignment of baby corns to London. In 2008, the firm had exported 200 million tonnes (MT) of vegetables to the European markets...




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Punjab strikes it rich with bumper crops, MSP hike

It turned out to be a prosperous 2008 for Punjab farmers as they reaped rich dividends from the bumper wheat and paddy crops. The plentiful season brought some cheer for the state Government as well with Punjab farmers




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Scented rice on revival route, set to outshine basmati

It is said to surpass all qualities of basmati except the length of the latter. But surprisingly, Kalanamak, a fragrant variety of rice and named thus as its husk is black, isn''t popular among farmers....




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Global orders for walnut kernels drying up

Just when Kashmir''s walnut kernel had begun doing brisk business in the international markets, recession hit and its rates tumbled, resulting in heavy losses to the growers, traders and exporters alike...




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Tulsi on a global journey

Nearly 10,000 farmers in Bundelkhand, Azamgarh and Mau in UP growing tulsi for international markets




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Varsity to push for kiwi fruit cultivation in Valley

The fruit was introduced in Kashmir in 1987 to assess its climatic adaptability




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Kisan Bank: a 'kind'' way to lend cash

How about repaying a loan in kind? This is exactly what a Kisan Bank set up in Dehradun intends to do...




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Dry spell continues, farmers in U''khand, Himachal stare at losses

Pin hopes on rainfall in February; besides rabi crop and fruit orchards, cash crops like peas, cabbage, potato, garlic and onion also damaged




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Reaping riches in suicide zone

Whenever Vidarbha''s farm crisis is debated, the blame is often thrust on the farmers themselves.




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Gum at your fingertips!

The exhaustive Dictionary of Indian Plant Gums, Resins, Dyes and Related Products by Dr M I H Farooqi is a unique effort...




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Spurious pesticides trouble Punjab farmers

Even as Punjab struggles to shrug off the tag of a state with the highest use of pesticides in the country, it is faced with another problem...




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Valley develops country''s first scab resistant apples

After more than a decade of hectic efforts and numerous trials, scientists at Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agriculture.




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Techies take TO farming

They slogged to make it to prestigious engineering colleges of the country. Only to return to the farms in their villages and try their hand at something.....




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India may crack into list of top walnut producers in five years, say J-K varsity scientists

Scientists at Jammu and Kashmir''s agriculture university claim to have worked out the perfect script to make India one among world''s top walnut producers....




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Kisan credit cards fail to attract farmers: J-K Govt report

The Kisan Credit Card (KCC) scheme has not found many takers ever though it was launched way back in 1998. A Jammu and Kashmir Government report has pointed out that till 2007-end, not more than 74,301 cards....




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Himachal farmers set to cash in on polyhouse cultivation

The Himachal Pradesh Government has decided to fund farmers, especially those in the hills, to build polyhouses modern greenhouses, in other words...




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Meet the rice saviours

Four farmer communities from different parts of the country were recently felicitated by the Government for their efforts at preserving...




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Honey: the new mantra for mango preservation

Pune-Based entrepreneur Rajiv Devkar seems to have hit the jackpot in his quest to preserve mangoes without the use of cold storage facilities.




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In poll season, Punjab readies to prevent wheat glut

A warm winter, overflowing stocks and a rather bleak possibility of private purchase amid falling global prices, all''s not well with Punjab''s wheat crop this year.




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CAG indicts J-K Government for neglect of farm sector

An audit scrutiny by the Comptroller and Auditor General has indicted the J-K Government for neglecting the Agriculture and Allied sector...




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A new gold standard for flood-resistant rice cultivation

Sitaram Yadav, a farmer based in Gohta village of Mau district in eastern Uttar Pradesh, gives a thumbs up to the flood-tolerant Swarna Sub-1 rice variety.




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Charting the milky way

Satnam Singh Mann and his group of dairy farmers are easily fielding a volley of questions from management students at Punjab Agricultural University.




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Rain, snow bring cheer to Himachal

The current spell of rainfall and snow in the upper and middle hills of Himachal Pradesh may translate into some respite for farmers and orchardists...




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Bloom or bust?

As the tulip garden by the banks of the Dal Lake is thrown open to the public, the authorities are skeptic about how long the breathtaking view of the flowers in full glory would last.




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No bumper wheat harvest in Punjab

Call it the paradox of timing clear skies when the farmers looked up for rains and it poured when they wanted the sun....




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U''khand farmer leads the way in pomegranate cultivation

Hatal, a small village in the Tiyuni area of Uttarakhand, has witnessed a quiet revolution over the last decade....




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Rains inundate Valley, may damage fruits

Incessant rains in Kashmir have resulted in a dip in day temperatures something which will not augur well for fruit trees.




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After organic farming, it''s agro-tourism for this bureaucrat

For the past year and a half, Assistant Excise and Taxation Commissioner Y S Matta is doing organic farming on his 30 acres of land in Kalomajra village....




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Himachal potato attracts food processing industries

It''s no longer serving its purpose only in the household kitchen. High-quality potato produced in the lower region of Himachal Pradesh....




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No farm hands, Punjab looks to mechanical help

In an attempt to combat the problem of shrinking farm labour availability, the worse of which is felt during the paddy season...




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Farming policies

If the Congress-led government returns to power, it will help resume exports of wheat and rice and continue existing policies but if it needs the support of its Leftist allies....




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Bumper crop, but UP farmers sell wheat at lower prices

Along with experiencing a bumper wheat crop this season, farmers in Uttar Pradesh are also forced to sell their produce for as low as Rs 910 per quintal...




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Growing Kashmir greens in Maharashtra''s backyard

Even though the weather and soil conditions here can seldom be compared, the yield seems to have transcended those boundaries.




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Hybrid hope

Even as the jury is still out on whether genetically modified crops affect biodiversity and lack nutritive value, two districts of Gujarat...




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EU ban threat looms as groundnut growers grapple with aflatoxin

Spiralling aflatoxin levels in groundnuts are giving nightmares to exporters in Gujarat, which accounts for over 50 per cent kernel exports from India.




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Full-boil innovation

Direct Seeded Rice, on which successful experiments were carried out in UP last season, is ready for large-scale cultivation




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Punjab goes green, reaps profits from organic wheat

While a majority of wheat farmers in Punjab and Haryana are ruing the loss of yield, all those who went for organic and natural farming this time are a happy lot.




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A case of missing Mangoes

While varieties like Rajapuri haven''t made it to the Mumbai markets at all, others like Badami and Lalbaug have been hit by a peculiar lack of demand