-Down to Earth Tree foods are often rich in vitamins, proteins and other vital nutrients. They can provide a diverse diet to people worldwide A new report underlines the link between forests and food security. The study released by the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO), the world's largest network of forest scientists, says that forests can improve nutrition level and meet the “Zero Hunger Challenge” by 2025. The study—Forests, Trees and...

-PTI PALGHAR: Raising concern over changing climate scenario and lack of technical and financial resources in tribal farming community, researchers have stressed on the need to develop 'climate-smart' villages in tribal areas of Maharashtra's Palghar district. A study conducted recently in the predominantly tribal Jawhar and Mokhada talukas of the district by International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), New Delhi, has revealed that there is a need to develop climate smart villages...

-The Hindu Gajendra Singh Rajput from Dausa. Hargovind Harane from Vidarbha . Gosai Patra from Bardhaman. Why did these farmers take their own lives? In the light of the burning issue of farmer suicides across the country, A.R. Vasavi looks at the plight of the marginalised cultivator. Basamma and her ailing husband have carried and spread their five sacks of ragi (finger millet) from their half-acre plot to the local tar road...

-Tehelka In these times of agrarian distress, NK Bhoopesh revisits the ‘revolution’ that changed Indian agriculture The growing number of farmer suicides across the country has punched holes in the dominant narrative of India’s rise as a global economic power articulated ad nauseum by big business, mainstream politicians and the corporate media. It has also put a question mark on another familiar tale: that the green revolution introduced in the 1960s was...

-IPS News NAYAGARH (IPS): Kama Pradhan, a 35-year-old tribal woman, her eyes intent on the glowing screen of a hand-held GPS device, moves quickly between the trees. Ahead of her, a group of men hastens to clear away the brambles from stone pillars that stand at scattered intervals throughout this dense forest in the Nayagarh district of India’s eastern Odisha state. The heavy stone markers, laid down by the British 150 years...