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...

Food security and organic farming can go hand in hand. Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee today gave a green signal to efforts under the National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture to promote green manuring and organic farming while talking about bringing in the Food Securtiy Act this year, settling the debate on high Pesticide and chemical fertiliser use in Punjab and Haryana. He said his government is mulling to also bring urea,...

Ram Dia Singh was ready to chuck in his life as a farmer in northern India to embrace that of an ascetic in the foothills of the Himalayan mountains. When he consulted his guru in the hill town of Solan, instead of being welcomed into a holy order he was instructed to return to the land and do good works among fellow farmers who increasingly struggle to eke out a living...

India’s Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar has refused to ban Endosulfan, a chemical used widely in India as an insecticide. He blamed farmers for the disastrous effects of this Pesticide on people. For instance, Kasargod district of Kerala had reported deaths and permanent disabilities due to the use of this chemical. Pawar said the culprits were the farmers who were spraying the Pesticide on the cashew crop against the advice of the Pesticide...