An area of cultivated land the size of Italy is lost each year to environmental degradation, industrialization and urbanization, a UN expert said Thursday. Up to 30 million hectares (75 million acres) of land is lost to the new pressures and Olivier De Schutter, UN special rapporteur on the right to food, said 500 million small farmers suffer from hunger partly because "their right to land is under attack." "As rural populations...

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...

Asia Pacific nations agreed on Sunday to boost the region’s agricultural productivity through technology transfer and information sharing as climate change and a fall in arable land threaten future food supplies. The 21-member countries of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) also called for “responsible” agricultural investment as rising acquisition of farmland in developing countries by other nations to ensure their own food supplies is causing friction with local people. “Climate change...

Steel giant Posco’s proposal for the largest foreign direct investment in India has failed to pass environment muster with a central panel picking flaws in the process to settle forest rights and approve the shortlisted site in Orissa. Three members of the four-person committee have recommended that the Union forest and environment ministry scrap its approvals while the remaining nominee has suggested that the exercise be carried out afresh. The panel’s recommendations...

“Punjab has suffered only debt, serious illnesses and polluted and scanty water sources” Appealing to the farmers and policy-makers to not emulate the Punjab model of Green Revolution, some farmers from Punjab said here on Sunday that the revolution had completely ruined the State. “Punjab is now called the cancer capital of India. The Green Revolution has given farmers only three things: debt, serious illnesses and polluted and scanty water sources,”...