The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has initiated a programme to improve global information on greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture and accurately assess farming’s potential to mitigate global warming. The improved data acquired by the FAO Mitigation of Climate Change in Agriculture (MICCA) programme, which will receive $5 million in funding from Germany and Norway, will be made available via an online global knowledge base that will profile greenhouse...

After increasing slowly and steadily from historic lows, world rice prices tripled in just six months during 2007-08. The price surge caused much anxiety because so many of the world’s poor are rice consumers. And it caught many by surprise as market fundamentals were sound. Indeed, it was government policies, rather than changes in the production and consumption of rice, that drove the surge. This suggests that improved government policies...

The European Commission’s decision to exclude two key ozone-depleting gases from the purview of carbon trading from 2013 would have negative implications for global warming. The two industrial emissions marked for this purpose are Hydrofluorocarbon-23 (HFC-23), essentially trifluoromethane, and nitrous oxide. These are highly potent greenhouse gases (GHGs) that together account for the bulk of the trade under the EU’s emission trading system, which is, by far, the world’s largest...

The government may allow post offices to set up automated teller machines, or ATMs , at rural areas, in an attempt to further strengthen the role of India Post in financial inclusion. India Post, which is working on major improvements in the payment process for social sector schemes like NREGA, will set up ATM networks in selected areas to give people access to online banking services. "Central, state and local governments are...

Next time you help yourself to some sea food, you could be helping save the planet. Agricultural experts believe that in the wake of rising sea level and shrinking cultivable land in the country due to climate change, sea could be the key to ensuring food security. "The rising sea has eaten away lands, especially farmlands. In fact, large tracts of farmlands in the coastal belt of the state, especially...