Ukraine has for long been a very productive food grain producing country with very favorable natural conditions for this role. In particular its role in producing surplus wheat has been very well-established. What is important for government policy is to establish the sustainability and equality aspects of these natural strengths. Unfortunately in recent years Ukraine has instead travelled in an[Read More…]
“There is really no true solution to the problem of global food security without bringing back the agriculture production of Ukraine and the food and fertilizer production of Russia and Belarus into world markets despite the war.” These blunt words by UN Secretary-General António Guterres accurately describe the present global food crisis. As the U.S. and the G7 (comprising Canada, France, Germany,[Read More…]
The quantity of plastic used in agriculture, food industries, livestock, etc. industries the world over is millions of tones each year. Asia is the largest user of plastic in these industries. Plastic pollution is a threat to food security. Excess salt in soil also puts food security at risk. Recent reports from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)[Read More…]
A study has found that nearly all French people are contaminated with heavy metals such as arsenic and mercury, and that exposure levels are higher than in other European countries. A RFI report said: France’s national health agency Santé Publique France said smoking and the consumption of fish and seafood products had contributed to the findings, published recently. The presence[Read More…]
The difficulties that Mexico has faced in recent times for protecting its food safety should be an eye-opener for all other developing countries including India. These difficulties are particularly acute in the case of corn crop which is the staple food-crop of the people of Mexico. After Mexico agreed to sign the infamous NAFTA trade agreement it was almost inevitable[Read More…]
While fierce debates rage on agriculture, the very important role of food processing is often neglected. This neglect can prove very costly, as the people of Mexico discovered much to their cost a few years ago. In the early 1990s a fierce debate raged in Mexico regarding the desirability of joining ( with USA and Canada) the North American Free[Read More…]
One of the several important aspects of debate on farm and food sector is that there should be more encouragement to increasing production of pulses, oilseeds and millets. This will be very good for nutrition and health of people, good for farm ecology and good for the self-reliance ( atma-nirbharta) of the country as well as its rural communities. One[Read More…]
The world is fast losing farms and farmers through the concentration of land into the hands of rich and powerful land speculators and agribusiness corporations. Smallholder farmers are being criminalised and even made to disappear when it comes to the struggle for land. They are constantly exposed to systematic expulsion. In 2014, the Oakland Institute found that institutional investors, including[Read More…]
Ignorance can be the best escapism, but if we are cognizant about the history of agriculture and the morphology of earth, we will know that a spectre haunts the living today. The spectre of science in proliferating scientificity and genealogy of knowledge on food production haunt us today. Food for self is transformed into food for others under the realm[Read More…]
Food is the basic need and fundamental right of every human being. The United Nations (1948) Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 25,1948) used an ecological perspective rooted in social justice to define “right to food”. It emphasizes ” quantitatively and qualitatively adequate and sufficient food corresponding to the cultural traditions of the people to which the consumers belong, and[Read More…]
India’s Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu recently stated that the country cannot survive on imported produce for its food security. He called for a greater focus on agriculture: “We can export (agricultural produce) for the time being but the population is growing.” Naidu pointed out what has become increasingly apparent: “People are leaving agriculture and going to other professions. An agriculturist does not[Read More…]
The National Food Security Act 2013 puts special emphasis on transparency where information relating to the entitlements under the Act should be placed in public domain. The section 27 of the Act particularly mandates, placing all documents relating to the Targeted Public Distribution System in public domain and creating mechanism for public inspection. However, the spirit of transparency norm is[Read More…]
“We are being ranched,” says Michael Brownlee, and what is more, most of us are living in one kind of food desert or another. In this book, author Michael Brownlee is inciting a local food revolution, and this revolution is far more expansive, far more radical, and far more life-altering than creating a few farmers markets and promoting one’s local[Read More…]
In the 2011 dystopian film In Time, Justin Timberlake works literally to earn his living, as the monthly currency is additional time for living. Billionaires can live for thousands of years, practically becoming immortals, while poor people struggle to survive every day, many of them failing in that endeavour. This science fiction film resembles painstakingly our real world, although instead[Read More…]
Like many of the grand schemes hatched in the wake of the 2007-2008 food price spikes, this one was a bust, by any measure. Still, ProSAVANA remains the Mozambican government’s agricultural development strategy for the region. While farmers defend their hard-won land rights, it seems they will have to look elsewhere for agricultural development.
A new report by leading sustainability experts has reaffirmed the case for a paradigm shift from industrial agriculture to diversified agroecological systems – fundamental to which is a call for redistributing power back into the hands of those who feed the world. By Adam Parsons An alternative vision of farming and food systems has long been upheld by civil society[Read More…]
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Demand for scrapping of iron fortified rice distribution in India’s public food schemes intensifies 
Government destroying public spaces rather than protecting them 
Our beloved K.P.Sasi is no more. Filmmaker, cartoonist, writer, mentor, friend and above all tireless activist championing the cause of every underdog, Sasi breathed his last, mid-afternoon this Christmas day – after battling a medical condition for months. I remember the last time I met him, almost exactly a month before he passed away, at the ayurvedic healing center in[Read More…]
