Small-scale farmers can double food production in a decade by using simple ecological methods, according to the findings of a new United Nations study released today, which calls for a fundamental shift towards agroecology as a poverty alleviation measure. “To feed 9 billion people in 2050, we urgently need to adopt the most efficient farming techniques available,” says Olivier De Schutter, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food and...

The unbridled manufacture and use of pesticides in Asia is raising the spectre of "pest storms" devastating the region's rice farms and threatening food security, scientists have warned. Increased production of cheap pesticides in China and India, lax regulation and inadequate farmer education are destroying ecosystems around paddies, allowing pests to thrive and multiply, they said. The problem has emerged over the last decade and -- if left unchecked -- pests could...

During a recent trip to a rural part of western India to report on rising food prices, I met two kinds of farmers — those with access to irrigation and those without. The differences between the two were stark. Those with drip irrigation or sprinklers invariably were reaping rich harvests and profits. But the vast majority of India’s farmers fall in the second camp: they water their crops by flooding their...

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said today that small seed enterprises are the best way of ensuring the availability and quality of non-hybrid seeds for food and animal feed crops in developing countries.In a newly-published policy guide, FAO cited World Bank data that showed that up to 50 per cent of crop yield increases come from improved seeds, while farmers’ access to quality seeds is a key...

Rattled by soaring food prices and falling farm productivity, the FM has announced a slew of measures to boost the farm sector and vowed to deepen the process of attracting more private investment in agriculture and agro-processing. He announced an increase in bank lending for farm sector as well as interest subsidy to farmers who pay short-term crop loans on time. "I propose to enhance additional subvention to 3% in 2011-12....