The corporate sector has evinced interest in the Assam farming sector for the first time by setting up the first farmer field school at Natoli in the Kaliabor subdivision of Nagaon district recently. The school, set up by United Phosphorus Limited (UPL)-Advanta, a crop protection, chemicals and seeds company, is the 26th such institution in the country.

Despite the steady growth of India’s farm sector in the past five years, the country has not been able to utilise fully the many scientific achievements in the agriculture sector, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Monday. “It represents failure of the system,” Singh said while speaking at the Golden Jubilee Convocation of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI). “There is a gap between the yield per hectare that is observed in the field and the yields that can be achieved under the ideal farm practices.

RAJSHAHI : Farmers of the region are seen showing much interested in seed-potato farming in net house method for multiplying the tissue- culture based seed-potato successfully.
Number and acreage of the modern farming method has been enhanced significantly for the last couple of years due to its better output.
Abu Hena Mostofa Kamal, a commercial farmer of Mollikpur village under Paba upazila, has transplanted 4,000 plantlets while Mustafiz of Ghipara village 2000 plantlets and they were very busy nurturing their growing plantlets.

The frequency of incidents of farmers committing suicides is “unimaginable” in West Bengal, State Left Front chairman Biman Bose said here on Friday.

“The government had fixed a target of 20 lakh metric tonnes for procurement of paddy from peasants in the State. According to reports, it has only collected 2 lakh metric tonnes so far,” Mr. Bose, who is also the State secretary of the CPI(M), told journalists.

BHUBANESWAR: Calling for an increase in agricultural productivity, profitability and sustainability to provide food and nutritional security to masses, experts at the 31st convocation of Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology (OUAT) on Saturday stressed a sound extension programme for technological empowerment of the farmers, rural youth and women.

In less than three years, more than 9,500 polyhouses have replaced ‘terraces’ on nearly 100 hectares of cultivable land on the slopes of Himachal Pradesh.
The innovative and lucrative method of farming inside polyhouses to grow vegetables has turned out to be ideal in harsh winters when little cultivation is possible in the hill state, particularly for farmers with small landholdings.