The Sri Lankan government is to provide the fertilizer subsidy currently granted to paddy cultivation to supplementary crop cultivations as well.

Wild Life and Agrarian Services Minister S.M. Chandrasena has said the Rs. 350 fertilizer subsidy granted to paddy cultivations would be granted to supplementary crop cultivations from today (21).

The fertilizer subsidy is to be granted to corn, soya, green gram, cowpea, chili peppers and vegetable cultivations.

President Dilma Rousseff is facing one of the defining moments of her presidency as pressure builds on her to veto a bill that would open vast protected areas of forests to ranching and farming, potentially reversing Brazil’s major gains in slowing Amazon deforestation.

A fast-spreading plague of "super weeds" taking over U.S. farmland will not be stopped easily, and farmers and government officials need to change existing practices if food production is to be protected, industry experts said on Thursday.

"This is a complex problem," said weed scientist David Shaw in remarks to a national "summit" of weed experts in Washington to come up with a plan to battle weeds that have developed resistance to herbicides.

Senior European Union officials failed on Wednesday to agree on how to measure the full climate impact of biofuels, prolonging uncertainty in a debate that threatens to wipe out large parts of Europe's biodiesel industry.

The talks followed warnings from scientists that using biodiesel made from European rapeseed and imported palm oil and soybeans does nothing to prevent climate change and could actually accelerate it.

A coalition of more than 2,000 U.S. farmers and food companies said Wednesday it is taking legal action to force government regulators to analyze potential problems with proposed biotech crops and the weed-killing chemicals to be sprayed over them.

Madhya Pradesh is set for a comprehensive policy for promotion of organic method of farming through restoration of deteriorating soil health.

The central Indian state's agriculture sector, which has been growing at an annual rate of 9% over the last three years and is expected to touch the double-digit mark, has emerged as the second biggest producer of wheat in the country and also the largest producer of soyabean.

Global food prices rose in March for a third straight month with more hikes to come, the UN's food agency said on Thursday, adding to fears of hunger and a new wave of social unrest in poor countries.

Record high prices for staple foods last year were one of the main factors that contributed to the Arab Spring uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa, as well as bread riots in other parts of the world.

The cost of food has risen again this year after coming down from a February 2011 record peak.

A federal class-action lawsuit brought last year by a consortium of farmers against the agricultural and chemical company Monsanto was dismissed Monday by Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald of Federal District Court.

European farmers are likely to fall behind in the competitive world grain market as EU consumer hostility to genetically modified organisms (GMOs) drives away research and prevents cultivation of high-yield and pest-resistant crops.

The European Union has approved only one GMO grain for cultivation - Monsanto's insect-resistant MON810 maize (corn). Fierce opposition has led Germany, Austria, Greece, Hungary, Luxembourg and Bulgaria to ban it.

The United States remained the primary backer of biotech crop technology in 2011, but adoption spread internationally as the total global planted area of genetically modified seeds grew 8 percent from a year ago, according to a report issued Tuesday.

Roughly 160 million hectares, or 395.2 million acres, were planted with biotech crops in 2011, up 8 percent from 2010, said the International Service for the Acquisition of Agri-Biotech Applications (ISAAA) in its annual report on biotech seed use.