Agriculture
Kit to identify virus in hill banana plants
THE Spic Science Foundation has developed a kit to identify bunchy top virus in banana plants, according to a press release from the foundation.
Coir geotextiles export surges
THE global shift, of late, towards natural geotextiles has led to a gradual rise in the export of coir geotextiles from Rs. 1.51 crores in 1994-95 to Rs. 7.69 crores in 1999-2000.
Further fall in EU prices for wheat, barley likely
A CONFLUENCE of market dynamics has narrowed the spread between higher European Union (EU) prices and world prices for wheat and barley. Further decline in EU prices expected under the Agenda 2000 reforms have the potential to close the spread altogether
, eliminating the need for export subsidies and helping them comply with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) constraints on subsidised exports, the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) has said.
Workshop on medicinal plants to focus on small farmers
DEMAND for medicinal plants, across the globe, is increasing. The World Health Organisation has estimated that 80 per cent of the population of the developing countries rely on herbal medicines. Even in the developed countries the market for herbal medic
ines is growing faster than that for other pharmaceutical products.
Plantations
Monsoon arrival adds to AP tobacco farmers' woes
NOTHING, it seems, is going right for the tobacco farmers in Andhra Pradesh at the moment. The monsoon has arrived in the State in the first week of June itself to compound their woes. However, the early onset of monsoon is beneficial to other farmers, e
specially those in the drought-hit parts of the State. Usually, the south-west monsoon arrives in the State only late in June and sometimes it is delayed even into the second fortnight of July. But this year scattered rains started in the last week of Ma
y itself in many of the tobacco-growing areas and now the monsoon seems to have fully arrived, making it difficult for the farmers to store the crop at the field level. Improper storage will affect the leaf chemistry and further depress the prices at the
auctions.
