Inter Press Service: He had decided to grow watermelons this summer on his one-acre (.405 hectare) plot, and so Veera Narayana went about preparing the arid red earth by first ploughing it and then lighting fires in the furrows. He explains that ploughing the earth thoroughly exposes pests’ larvae to the heat of the sun, while ash in the furrows will act as pesticide. But Narayana says that at some point he would also be mixing neem seeds, green chili, garlic paste, and kerosene as yet another …