How some farmers in India are doubling rice yields without pesticides, GM, or Monsanto

[wtmusic]

"Sumant Kumar was overjoyed when he harvested his rice last year. There had been good rains in his village of Darveshpura in north-east India and he knew he could improve on the four or five tonnes per hectare that he usually managed. But every stalk he cut on his paddy field near the bank of the Sakri river seemed to weigh heavier than usual, every grain of rice was bigger and when his crop was weighed on the old village scales, even Kumar was shocked.

This was not six or even 10 or 20 tonnes. Kumar, a shy young farmer in Nalanda district of India's poorest state Bihar, had – using only farmyard manure and without any herbicides – grown an astonishing 22.4 tonnes of rice on one hectare of land. This was a world record and with rice the staple food of more than half the world's population of seven billion, big news."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2013/feb/16/india-rice-farmers-revolution

[nebenaube]

1. must be metric tonnes... n/t

[JackRiddler]

2. WOW!!!

This is such a good article!

(Take that, Monsanto vultures.)

It will be a shame to watch it be buried under less significant ones. Ah well.

[niyad]

3. k and r--and waiting for the monsanto groupies to weigh in

[BrotherIvan]

4. I pray this adopted

And starts a new way of thinking about agriculture. We're killing our planet and our health with our farming practices.

[pansypoo53219]

5. nature works better than monsanto.

[Champion Jack]

6. K and R Monsanto must go