The thinking now is to use this resource for domestic agriculture instead of the earlier plan to export it, exploit the phosphate deposit in a sustainable manner and reduce reliance on imported fertilizer. The National Science Foundation of Sri Lanka is planning to harness the knowledge and experience of scientists who are involved in research work on this phosphate resource to prepare a comprehensive plan to use rock phosphate as fertilizer under its Coordinated Thematic Research...

But candidates must be vigilant, because many don't choose their candidate until close to the election. Women outnumber and outvote men, and candidates are already creating campaigns to woo the female vote and strategists are tailoring campaign issues to focus on women's concerns, including health care and education. Although some may be influenced by their sex and thus likely to vote for a woman on the ballot, others are just as likely to vote for a man, observers say. And in the 2008...

These farmers must be regarded less as farmers and more as able-bodied welfare recipients in straw hats. You need to know the respective cost of each method to calculate a country's actual subsidies - and to determine how much of them can properly be deemed to be illegal. These are average percentages for the decade - meaning that the percentages must have reached higher levels in some number of years. The Environmental Working Group, a non-partisan research organization, has calculated...

A US biotechnology company and Indian private and public sector partners will forge research partnerships to develop new rice varieties that tolerate drought and salt, he noted. The agreement to include biosecurity as a new component under emerging area of biotechnology - one of the four identified focus areas - was announced here Friday after the group's fifth board meeting. A work plan, formulated in February 2006, defined the initiative into four focus areas - university capacity...

The number of farmers continues to drop, feeding both the idea of putting together programs to encourage young farmers and the idea of changing from a commodity-based approach to a rural development approach in farm policy. Leaders of the cotton and rice producer groups have balked at stricter payment limitations, calling them an attack on their way of life because the cost of production per acre is higher for their crops. Also, as the person who often tries to bring state and national...