The conclusions of the United Nations summit on the world's progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) present a gloomy picture. Some goals such as universal primary education, reducing child mortality, and improving maternal health are unlikely to be reached by the 2015 deadline. The world may be on track to meet the target of halving the number of people living under $1 a day, but the numbers suffering from...

A decline in pollinating insects in India is resulting in reduced vegetable yields and could limit people's access to a nutritional diet, a study warns. Indian researchers said there was a "clear indication" that pollinator abundance was linked to productivity. They added that the loss of the natural service could have a long-term impact on the farming sector, which accounts for almost a fifth of the nation's GDP. Globally, pollination is estimated to...

KFRI study finds serious health and environmental hazards in some districts Overuse of pesticides in pineapple farming is feared to have caused serious health and environmental hazards in some districts in the State. Overuse of pesticides, herbicides and weedicides has been reported from Kuttikanam in Idukki and the Mundakkayam and Erumeli areas in Kottayam, where pineapple is grown in rubber estates as an intercrop. A field verification study by the Kerala Forest...

The minister for environment and forests, Jairam Ramesh’s order stopping Vedanta Aluminum Ltd and the Orissa Mining Corporation from mining bauxite in the Niyamgiri Hills to feed the company’s adjacent Lanjigarh aluminum refinery plant located in one of the country’s poorest districts in the name of tribal interest tends to miss the wood for the trees. It is based on the report of a four-member expert group under N C...

Climate change and global food shortages could bring unexpected benefits for British farmers in the next two decades, ultimately relieving taxpayers of the burden of subsidising them, Caroline Spelman, environment secretary, has claimed. Ms Spelman said the UK was unlikely to suffer the severe water shortages that scientists predict will afflict other parts of the world, and that British farmers should be able to exploit greater demand for their produce. “Countries that...