Businesses and policy-makers need to recognize the tremendous economic value of ecosystems, as well as the social and economic costs of losing such natural resources as forests, freshwater, soils and coral reefs, a new United Nations report released today said. The report by the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB), a body hosted by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), seeks to galvanize the world to recognize the economic consequences of failing...

Vice-President M Hamid Ansari today said it is "anomalous" that over 250 million Indians were chronically undernourished although the nation has achieved self-sufficiency in foodgrain production. "This is anomalous looking at record food grain production in recent years," Ansari said quoting Food and Agriculture Organisation reports while delivering the convocation address at the Orissa University of Agriculture and Technology (OUAT) here. Stating that the country has achieved self sufficiency in food grain...

One billion people worldwide still live in extreme poverty Agricultural growth remains central to poverty reduction, as one billion people worldwide continue living in extreme poverty, many of them in rural areas, a World Bank Group on agriculture, the Independent Evaluation Group (IEG), said in a report released on Tuesday. Drawing on the World Bank Group's (WBG) experience in supporting agricultural growth in the past decade, the report — Growth and Productivity...

State-owned trading firm MMTC Ltd, the Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative (Iffco) and the conglomerate Bharti Enterprises plan to join the growing number of Indian entities engaged in commercial farming in Africa. Cheap land and labour costs in Africa are attracting a number of Indian firms with interest in agriculture. A large number of people in East African countries such as Kenya work in the cultivation of tea, coffee, corn, vegetables, sugarcane,...

Observing that hawkers have a fundamental right to carry on their business, the Supreme Court has asked the Delhi Government to enact a law to regulate their trade keeping in mind also the right of commuters to move freely and use the roads without any impediment. A Bench of Justice G. S. Singhvi and Justice A. K. Ganguly disposing of a batch of appeals filed by hawkers said “before June 30,...