IS COW ONE STOP SOLUTION FOR INDIAN AGRICULTURE? The hungama created a year back about ban on cattle sales, cattle movement and atrocities and killing of minorities and dalits indulge in cattle movement is still fresh in memory. Now another jumla like cow centric agriculture is solution for doubling farmers income by 2022 is in offing and it is likely to be announced as national program on August 15th. Natural farming may be one method, but how can GOI promote it in large scale without scientific validation? My request to Agri scientists is not to fall flat to bureaucracy and political nexus and do injustice to Indian agriculture. Please resist the move and counter it with data base. Where NF is good please do encourage it. But do not accept cow as only one medicine for all evils. Justify the actions with documentstion and scientific validation. For example the good yield means the crop absorbed good amount of organic carbons from soils and they need to be compensated. Whether...

PINEAPPLES FROM SEETHAMPETA, SRIKAKULAM DIST  The well known local variety of pineapple”Simhachalam” which is very sweet with juicy pulp and gold colour  is grown in about 15000 acres in Savara tribal pockets of Palkonda and Seethampeta mandals. The quality of fruit in this area is very good due to traditional organic cultivation practices of tribals. The soils are very rich with good amount of organic matter. These pineapples contain more vitamins and protein when compare to the same fruit grown in commercial Agriculture areas. Despite the presence of ITDA, Horti Dept, Velugu, ZBNF, number of FPOs there is hardly any aggregation and marketing support, forget about value addition and storage systems. Local sandies with all sorts of exploitative methods is the only marketing venue for these poor tribals, Like the fate of most of agri commodities, the pineapple rates are Rs 6 to 8/ piece weighing around 1 to 1.5 kgs as against last year rates of Rs 14 to 18.  ...

Doubling farmers income by 2022 - vision Increase in fertiliser, pesticide, tractors , agri implements prices considerably with new GST. Even organic fertilisers are not spared. e NAM is being projected as big achievement, but in reality it is just functioning as data entry tool. Zero budget natural farming (ZBNF) is being projected as an alternative. Is there any scientific validation for improving yields through this method? Can we really scale it up? Unwanted import of food grain s and throwing them into gutters after price crash locally - present mission If this mission continue like this, forget about doubling farmer income, it may lead to doubling farmer debts. Please wake up and be sincere to farmers. BGR

Doubling farmers income by 2022 - vision Increase in fertiliser, pesticide, tractors , agri implements prices considerably with new GST. Even organic fertilisers are not spared. e NAM is being projected as big achievement, but in reality it is just functioning as data entry tool. Zero budget natural farming is being projected as an alternative. Is there any scientific validation for improving yields through this method? Can we really scale it up? Unwanted import of food grains and throwing them on gutters after price crash locally - present mission If  this mission continue like this, forget about doubling farmer income, it may lead to doubling farmer debts. Please wake up and be sincere to farmers. BGR